Partway through her postgraduate career, Amy McKeown-Green PhD ’27 realized she needed a change. 

While McKeown-Green was in a chemistry department research lab, she felt drawn to a material science lab instead. The transition would not be easy: she had to navigate funding changes and departmental politics that could mean losing friends.

During it all, McKeown-Green found perspective through Allies of Women in STEM Education (WISE). The group, which held weekly meetings with fellow students also going through the challenges of postgraduate research, helped McKeown-Green solidify her resolve to make the jump. “They have all just been these amazing sounding boards,” she said.

One session this September, though, the group facilitator came with a surprise announcement: WISE and its sister program, Allies of Women in Social Sciences and the Humanities (WISSH), would be cancelled in December.

According to an email sent by the directors of the program to all WISE members, the program’s cancellation is due to funding challenges on the part of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE), which finances WISE.

McKeown-Green’s first reaction was heartbreak. “I was like, ‘This can’t be happening,’” she said. Her fellow group members had become some of her closest friends and confidants. “I had always pictured these people… com[ing] to my thesis defense.” 

She cried throughout the drive home.

Throughout their 25-year lifetime, WISE and WISSH have served over 2,000 students. 

The University’s $140 million reduction in general funds was cited as the primary reason many on-campus groups have been impacted, according to VPGE Kenneth Goodson. Higher taxes on the VPGE’s endowment-supported fellowships and the new five-year PhD funding guarantee contributed to the strain, he wrote in a statement to The Daily. While choosing which programs to let go of, “our decision-making considered the numbers of students participating as well as the total amount of related expenses,” he wrote. “This has been a very difficult set of decisions to make.”

WISE’s end was originally scheduled for September, but “after much negotiation and sincere efforts on all parts, we were able to get the termination date to be Dec. 31, 2025,” directors Laraine T. Zappert, Ann Richman and Susan Owicki wrote in the email to members. The extension would give organizers a chance to find external sources of funding, they wrote. 

As the reality of the program’s ending set in, McKeown-Green’s initial despair hardened into rage. The program’s costs were minimal, according to multiple sources, consisting of a weekly salary for discussion facilitators and their insurance. “There are these ‘100 years of engineering’ monogrammed lights that are in the engineering quad,” McKeown-Green said. “We’re paying for fancy lights to celebrate 100 years. But you can’t pay for WISE?”

A group member, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from others in her department, also told The Daily that WISE facilitators previously offered to continue their role salary-free, but the University declined.

A facilitator told The Daily that, even if they stayed on, the program’s organizational staff would not be present to support. “It would be hard to [facilitate] as just a single person unconnected from the rest of the WISE group,” they said. The facilitator requested to stay anonymous for fear of professional retaliation.

For McKeown-Green, the end of WISE means losing a group who can relate to and offer advice about the gendered aspects of graduate school. “There are many times [when] I’m the only woman in a room,” she said. “How do you speak up for yourself in that situation? What behavior is just tough love versus [something] inappropriate, like bullying?” Those were among the difficulties that McKeown-Green has managed to handle with the advice of her group members.

“You can really go, ‘Hey guys, this happened.’ And everyone has had it happen to them,” she said.

After WISE’s cancellation, McKeown-Green and her group plan to continue meeting informally to continue the program’s legacy. However, without the University’s support, McKeown-Green believes it would be difficult for members of newer cohorts to join.

For the anonymous facilitator, WISE’s sunsetting is a step back for the University in terms of supporting mental health. “It’s disheartening to know that this group that’s been around for so long won’t be able to continue,” they said.