University president Jonathan Levin ’94 promised funding for Ph.D. students for at least five years at Monday’s Graduate Student Council (GSC) meeting.
“You’re making a long term decision to be here. You’re going to have funding for five years,” he said about graduate students coming to Stanford to pursue a Ph.D. However, he did not provide a clear answer on how he planned to support programs that lasted longer than five years.
Federal funding has become increasingly unstable recently because of President Donald Trump administration’s proposal to change National Institute of Health (NIH) federal funding. The impending cuts would primarily impact biomedical and health research. Last year, Stanford Department of Medicine received $172.6 million in awards from the NIH.
During the meeting, Levin acknowledged the current feelings of uncertainty about federal grant programs. The Trump administration may also implement an endowment tax on universities, which would tax a portion of the University’s annual endowment income.
“Our financial model is set up to give some certainty and not just have big fluctuations from year to year. And this is a different environment, and so we’d like to put ourselves in a position where we can be nimble,” Levin said. He noted that the recently enacted hiring freeze is meant to provide stability and adaptability from these changes, freezing all hiring aside from faculty positions, student workers and temporary workers.
Council member and financial officer Pamela Martinez M.F.A. ’25, speaking via proxy Artem Arzyn ’25, M.S. ’25, asked about the university’s response to new federal policies regarding DEI. She specifically asked about the information on DEI being “preemptively” removed from websites and graduate fellowships.
Levin said he wanted to be cautious when making decisions about DEI and other policy changes. He said he wanted to focus on making “long term decisions.” However, he said the removal of DEI from fellowship descriptions was made to help individuals the fellowships were supporting, not respond preemptively to the new federal administration’s changes.
Many graduate fellowships have changed the wording of their missions on their websites. The Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence (DARE) Fellowship previously stated that it was dedicated to support individuals who would “contribute to the diversity of their field,” as of December last year.
However, it now states that it is dedicated to supporting students who will “contribute to the richness of their field.” The webpage also now omits a definition of diversity and various groups that may fall under diverse backgrounds.
Council member Laurel Kim J.D. ’26 also raised concerns about the potential appearance of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on campus, which has recently been spotted around the country as part of the federal administration’s move to deport illegal migrants.
Levin offered potential resources, referencing a website containing information to support students with immigration. However, he said that if the university needed to “comply with federal law,” then they would hand over information on students.
Kim pointed to the “ambiguity” of the online resources describing occasions when information would be volunteered as a major cause for concern. However, Levin did not offer specifics. He said that he did not have information for every contingency.
The GSC also spent time discussing institutional neutrality with Levin, asking him to explain the reasoning behind the adopted policy.
The university adopted the position of institutional neutrality in May last year following discussions in the Faculty Senate (FacSen) regarding the university’s future approach to political discourse.
The GSC also asked Levin about other concerns including divestment; however, Levin said that divestment could be interpreted as the university taking political action, which would violate the University’s policy of institutional neutrality.
“We expect students and faculty to be engaged [in] social and political issues,” Levin said. “In order to facilitate an environment on campus where individual students and faculty can pursue their own ideas and thinkers can engage in debate, discussion and dialog, it’s best for the institution as a whole not to be a political actor.”
This article has been updated to reflect that Trump’s executive order regarding the NIH would change federal funding to the University, not eliminate it.