Dear Members of the TC Community,

I am writing to provide some updates that affect our Teachers College community as we prepare for the full return to campus next week.

TC’s Federal Grants: On March 7, I shared the news that the federal government’s cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University had also impacted TC, even as we are an independent institution, guided by a separate Board of Trustees, with a separate endowment, and enforcing our own set of anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies. A total of 11 faculty members, Principal Investigators of grants, received letters indicating that their grant funding was cut.

This amounts to a total value of approximately $17.5 million that were cut, including sub-awarded funds, with impacts to our faculty work and student support across multiple academic programs and the Community College Research Center (CCRC), as well as to TC’s operating budget through overhead contributions. An additional subcontract through Columbia and several grants supporting student fellowships have also been terminated. All those who are impacted by these cuts are in conversation with Vice Dean for Research Caroline Ebanks and Provost KerryAnn O’Meara to understand implications, opportunities for appeals and next steps.

How Are We Responding? First and foremost, we are working to determine the impact to students and faculty, and considering options for moving forward. Again, everyone directly affected has been notified. This is not simply about payroll. It is about ensuring that we can do the things that enable TC to thrive as an institution—with a future as strong as its historic past.

Tactically, we are working on several broad strategies at once to fight these cuts.

• Direct appeal: Working directly with the grant PIs, through government contacts and with legal advisors, our Office of General Counsel is seeking to restore funding. This process will take time and resources, so we will be limited in our ability to provide updates.

• Communications & Marketing: We are working to raise awareness of our work—and particularly, the impact of these cuts on the public good—through media interviews, articles, and placements. Such actions are intended to galvanize public support, enabling allies and independent voices to recognize the damage inflicted by these cuts.

• Advocacy and Action: Our Government Relations office is working directly with members of Congress and the broader TC community can also take action. We are sharing options through our TC Take Action site, including a “3-a-Day” campaign, three actions anyone can take to support education and the restoration of funds, from letter writing templates, to scripts for calling local officials, and social media posts. More details on the campaign are forthcoming.

• Coalition building: This is a precarious time for all universities. We have never seen the kind of direct attack on higher education as we are seeing now. This means we are not in this alone. There are a number of associations, both formal and informal, with which we are aligning in response. Acting as a coordinated sector takes time and patience. Together, we are a powerful entity and we are investing the time and effort to respond, even as we are all individually addressing these direct hits.

U.S. Department of Education: On March 20, an executive order was signed calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. While the task cannot be completed without approval from Congress, the Secretary has already begun gutting the department by cutting close to 2,000 staff positions and the order indicates the Department will be closed beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities. Millions of Americans rely on the U.S. Department of Education to access special education resources, ensure their civil rights are protected, and to pay for college. As with previous orders, we expect there to be legal action.

Columbia University Response to Trump Administration Demands: On March 13, the Trump administration sent a letter to Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong with a list of nine demands. Their deadline to respond is end of day Friday, March 21. We will keep you apprised of any developments that impact TC community members when they are on the Columbia campus.

Going forward: Our campus has weathered a good number of storms since I became president in 2018, and this is not the end of it. We remain steadfast in our support for our community, which is diverse in terms of racial and ethnic background, religion, gender, viewpoint, geography, and much more. That diversity is important to our scholarship, and it’s important to who we are. It is in TC’s DNA.

We are not backing away from our values, our emphasis on research, or our recognition that all learners, whether in PK-12 public, private, or independent schools, community colleges, institutions of higher education and graduate schools, bring a great variety of cultures, styles, viewpoints–and therefore strengths–to the classroom that make us all better. Our jobs as educators are to help our students identify and build those strengths across a full range of subjects. We know that education across the lifespan is required not only for a functioning democracy, but for self agency, and fulfilling our collective mission to build a smarter, healthier, more just and equitable world.

I encourage you all to continue that work. I remind you once again that our most important action during these challenging times is to pursue your scholarship, your research, your teaching and learning. I will do everything I can to ensure your success.

With best wishes,

Thomas Bailey
President

Teachers College, Columbia University