Christopher L. Eisgruber

Thanks for coming here.

Thanks for coming here.

Do you mind if I grab a cup of coffee? Please, no, no.

Do you mind if I grab a cup of coffee? Please, no, no.

Okay. I'm already caffeinated.

Okay. I'm already caffeinated.

Okay. Terrific. Come on back.

Okay. Terrific. Come on back.

Yeah, feel free to call me Chris, please. Okay, Chris. It's easier than Eisgruber.

Yeah, feel free to call me Chris, please. Okay, Chris. It's easier than Eisgruber.

Well, without trying to be precise right now about the timeline, we began to see precipitous kind of threats to funding streams early on in the new presidential administration. And that included initially a freeze to funding. research funding to universities. It included the imposition of severe caps on what are known as facilities and administration recoveries or overhead cost charges.

Well, without trying to be precise right now about the timeline, we began to see precipitous kind of threats to funding streams early on in the new presidential administration. And that included initially a freeze to funding. research funding to universities. It included the imposition of severe caps on what are known as facilities and administration recoveries or overhead cost charges.

Those are charges that apply to very real costs of research. And suddenly the government is saying, well, we're going to take that number down in ways that are going to make it impossible for universities to go forward with the research that they've been doing before.

Those are charges that apply to very real costs of research. And suddenly the government is saying, well, we're going to take that number down in ways that are going to make it impossible for universities to go forward with the research that they've been doing before.

So that was the point at which I and every other university president realized there was a serious threat to this government-university partnership that has contributed to the strength of the country and to the quality of our research institutions. Then a couple of weeks ago, something happened at Columbia that introduced a new and, in my view, very dangerous element to this, which is that

So that was the point at which I and every other university president realized there was a serious threat to this government-university partnership that has contributed to the strength of the country and to the quality of our research institutions. Then a couple of weeks ago, something happened at Columbia that introduced a new and, in my view, very dangerous element to this, which is that

The government came in and, without any due process or any apparent investigation, said basically to Columbia, we're going to take away a bunch of your grants that support things like medical research, and we're not going to restore them to you unless you do things like admissions reform for how it is you take in undergraduate students and putting certain departments that deal with things like Middle Eastern studies into receivership.

The government came in and, without any due process or any apparent investigation, said basically to Columbia, we're going to take away a bunch of your grants that support things like medical research, and we're not going to restore them to you unless you do things like admissions reform for how it is you take in undergraduate students and putting certain departments that deal with things like Middle Eastern studies into receivership.

That was whole new territory in terms of what the government was doing because the government was using its tremendous power over research dollars to try to control what a private university was doing in terms of matters that are generally considered part of academic freedom.

That was whole new territory in terms of what the government was doing because the government was using its tremendous power over research dollars to try to control what a private university was doing in terms of matters that are generally considered part of academic freedom.