Students in environmental fields are losing federal internship and employment opportunities due to funding issues caused by the Trump administration.
Ella Squires, a second-year geological oceanography major at the University of Rhode Island, was working at her local coffee shop on Feb. 13 when she got an email informing her that her internship program was no longer being offered.
Just days before, Squires had been accepted into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fish Internship Program, being placed at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus through the Graduate School of Oceanography.
“It [the email] just popped up on my watch [at work], I was like, oh they’re gonna tell me something about my research, like this is exciting,” Squires said.
As Squires continued to read the email, she saw the words: “due to funding issues we will be canceling the internship.”
“My face just melted,” Squires said. “I immediately went and told my boss and he literally was just like, ‘I’m sick of you being distracted at work.’”
Squires said that after the rejection, she started to rethink her choices to go into the oceanography field. Without federally funded programs, and deadlines fast approaching, her internship pool shrunk substantially.
Squires said she has also had professors who were forced to cut back their programs. Some of those professors now have a limited ability to provide students with internship opportunities due to lack of funding, according to Squires. One of those professors is Dawn Cardace, a professor of geosciences in the College of Environmental and Life Sciences.
Short term internships, that she otherwise would have offered, will no longer be available, according to Cardace.
“I feel less confident today in my ability to secure those funds, so it has slowed me down in terms of encouraging students to apply, and I may not admit anybody,” Cardace said.
Even with the amount of available internships shrinking, Cardace has been advising students not to lose sight of their goals.
“I’m advising people to build their resumes deliberately, widely, but not lose track of where they want to be,” Cardace said.
Reacting to federal funding freezes, the university decided to freeze the indirect funds available to professors, according to Cardace. This “rash of disruptive orders” has made professors unable to fund student initiatives such as analytical work, conference attendances and 100-hour internships.
Students in environmental fields are being advised to not rely on federal agencies for employment after graduation or for internships, according to Soni Pradhanang, a professor in the department of geosciences.
“I would say for students who are trying to secure internships or jobs with federal agencies, they need to diversify their application,” Pradhanang said.
Pradhanang, who was concerned about a recently hired student, said that while all the federal grants have been affected, the university was “generous” in assisting her student.
“Fortunately, in funding my student, I didn’t face that hurdle and I hope I will never face those hurdles,” Pradhanang said.
After her program was canceled, Squires worried about any research that isn’t funded by non-profits or private foundations.
“[There] isn’t really anywhere else to go with the kind of research that everybody’s kind of doing regarding oceanography, science, biology, kind of vibe,” Squires said. “ If they’re not funded by a non-profit or like a private organization [they’re gone].”
Squires viewed the funding cuts, and the subsequent loss of her internship, as an attack on students’ education in environmental fields.
“It’s a really scary time,” Squires said. “Because, you know, the big man in the office believes that higher education is a threat.”
