Changing directives and priorities at the federal level have caused uncertainty on university campuses nationwide at at UW–Madison for researchers whose work ultimately improves lives in Wisconsin and across the nation.
These are the stories of two graduate students who have been impacted by these federal funding changes.
Kyoungjin Jang-Tucci, Education
PhD student Kyoungjin Jang-Tucci has been a research assistant on the Networks and Cultural Assets project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project traces how students’ networks change over time, focused on how students use their community ties, support structures, and knowledge to achieve their career outcomes.
Jang-Tucci, a doctoral student in Educational Policy Studies, researches student success and career development during college. The Networks and Cultural Assets project was a perfect complement to this work, since the topics that the project follows are related to students’ career development and their career outcomes post-college.
The project has followed a cohort of students in the University of Texas system for three years, starting when they were juniors in college and continuing through this year when many of the students will have graduated and began their careers in the workforce. The study collects data through surveys, and that data still needs to be reviewed and translated into practical takeaways about how to improve students’ career outcomes.
“We’ve been developing workshops for college educators as well as college students, and this data has been informing us to shape these workshops and educational or training programs for higher education members,” Jang-Tucci said. “And the third-year data is crucial because we will have solid, empirical evidence whether this kind of intervention in colleges or other initiatives that are going on are influencing students. That data will inform the practices that we are developing as well as institutional-level policies that we are trying to inform.”
The project received funding for four years and is rounding out its third year. After this, NSF would typically send the funds once it confirms that the project is meeting its milestones, which the NCA project has met.
However, the grant was canceled in April. Jang-Tucci will no longer work for the project and instead sought out a different, more stable source of funding. It was not a decision she would have made otherwise, she said.
Funding uncertainty has a big impact for graduate students, especially those who must find positions based on the academic year schedule, Jang-Tucci said.
“This was concerning, first of all, in financial terms, but at the same time I really strongly feel that [in] this community and this project, I have a sense of belonging,” she said. “I invested a lot in many different ways – time-wise and [emotionally] – so it was hard to navigate this whole process.”
Evelyn Coker, Social Welfare
Evelyn Coker is a PhD student in Social Welfare whose research focuses on creating interventions for Black girls in the youth legal system, emphasizing implementation and program evaluation processes.
In August, Coker was selected as a Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Scholar with the American Evaluation Association. One of the program’s stated goals is to develop evaluators’ capacity to work in racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse settings.
Coker’s focus for her internship was creating culturally responsive evaluation frameworks, and she was assigned to work with the National Science Foundation. During the fall semester, she went through the federal clearance and new employee onboarding process. She also worked to prepare to begin her project in January. However, in late January, she received notice that she had to pause her project and internship work due to the GEDI program’s focus on building underrepresented students’ capacity as evaluators. Her internship was then terminated in February.
Because of her interest in equity-minded research and culturally responsive evaluation, Coker said she feels she may no longer have the intellectual freedom to do the research she wants.
“I focus on marginalized populations – people whose voices are often silenced in research. Particularly for system-involved black girls, I wanted to focus on programs, interventions, and even policies that would meet their cultural needs [and] their overlapping, oppressed identities,” she said. “I also, through my equity-focused research, really wanted to shed light on protective factors and strengths of Black girls, and not just take a deficit model that much of the research has highlighted in years past.”
Coker said that she measures success in her research based on whether Black girls involved with the youth legal system have intervention programs that they feel meet their needs and are culturally relevant. These programs would help them build social and emotional learning skills and cultivate self-esteem.
“Those are also many of the things that I hope to highlight in my research,” she said. “Particularly with Black girls and even many system-involved populations, there’s a lot of focus on deficits. But there are many assets that I think should be highlighted and could also contribute to positive outcomes.”
When Coker’s internship was paused, she hadn’t yet been added to the payroll system, meaning she was not compensated for the work she completed before receiving the notice to pause the internship. She had been expecting to be paid around $15,000 for the entire internship.
“For the spring, I chose not to teach so I could just focus on my hours,” Coker said. “So, I essentially took out loans to pay my tuition and to cover things because I was expecting the $15,000.”
Beyond the financial impact, Coker said the internship pause disrupted her graduate training. While she had already attended a conference and a few seminars with the program, losing her placement in a federal agency has dampened a potential path for post-graduate school employment.
“I was really excited to be at NSF,” she said. “I was really excited about the task that I was given, the potential to do site visits and visit programs in a variety of states, and add more applied skills to my toolbelt. [I was] also hoping NSF could have been a potential employer had the internship been completed successfully.”