  {"id":211493,"date":"2025-02-27T10:37:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T20:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=211493"},"modified":"2025-03-05T13:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T23:21:06","slug":"helping-uh-students-affected-by-funding-freezes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/02\/27\/helping-uh-students-affected-by-funding-freezes\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping <abbr>UH<\/abbr> students affected by funding freezes, executive orders"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_211494\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-211494\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-3.jpg\" alt=\"Grad student smiling\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-211494\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-3.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-3-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-3-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-211494\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael Fernandez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At the urging of University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> President Wendy Hensel, the Âé¶¹´«Ã½Foundation is working to raise private donations to support graduate students whose funding has been interrupted due to recent federal executive orders. The foundation launched the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhfoundation.org\/give\/giving-opportunity\/help-uh-grad-students-affected-federal-funding-freeze#donate\">Graduate Student Success Fund<\/a> to provide direct relief\u00a0to students to help them overcome these financial obstacles, enabling them to continue their education and work in our communities.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-2-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Researcher pointing to a screen in a lab\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-211496\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-2-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-2.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Recent federal executive orders have had many direct and indirect consequences for universities across the U.S., including the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span>. Some graduate students at <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa and <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo have lost their research funding and educational stipends as a result of stop work orders and freezes on federal grant funds.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Given the recent news on funding freezes and internal communications about significant cuts coming to the <abbr>NSF<\/abbr> (National Science Foundation), I and other fellows in the program feel uncertain about future funding from the fellowship,&rdquo; said Michael Fernandez, a first-year <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa doctoral student in the botany program. &ldquo;This is especially concerning for me, as the <abbr>NSF-GRFP<\/abbr> (Graduate Research Fellowship Program) is currently my primary and sole source of funding for my graduate studies.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Researchers working with a plant\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-211497\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-1-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-1.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;For these students, this sudden financial instability is likely to impose hardship and make the continued pursuit of higher education\u2014let alone meeting immediate needs\u2014very challenging,&rdquo; Hensel said. &ldquo;It is critical that we do all we can to ensure that our university graduates, the next generation of talent, desperately needed for <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s workforce. These graduate students are our scientists,\u00a0doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, engineers, educators and leaders of tomorrow.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Tim Dolan, <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Foundation CEO said, &ldquo;We know how much our community cares about <abbr>UH<\/abbr> and our students. Through gifts of all sizes, our neighbors, alumni, business leaders and friends can make a direct and positive impact by supporting our graduate students during this time of unpredictable funding.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhfoundation.org\/give\/giving-opportunity\/help-uh-grad-students-affected-federal-funding-freeze#donate\">Learn more about and donate to the Graduate Student Success Fund<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/federal-updates\/\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr>\u2019s New federal policy updates and resources page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-4.jpg\" alt=\"Collage of grad student research\" width=\"676\" height=\"338\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-211495\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-4.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-4-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/foundation-grad-student-help-4-130x65.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Foundation launched the\u00a0Graduate Student Success Fund to provide direct relief\u00a0to students affected by federal cuts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1674,61,62,63,64,65,71,319,14,9,60,947,59,66],"class_list":["post-211493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-executive-orders","tag-hawaii-community-college","tag-honolulu-community-college","tag-kapiolani-community-college","tag-kauai-community-college","tag-leeward-community-college","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-uh-foundation","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-maui-college","tag-uh-system","tag-uh-west-oahu","tag-windward-community-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211493"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211792,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211493\/revisions\/211792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}