4 ms·

So far the fight/not fight decisions can be predicted in advanced based on whether an institution has a medical center with NIH grants.

alephnerd 2y ago
And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a similarly active student activism scene. Most other private universities could have easily managed the relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up. Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni relations team actually TRY to maintain a relationship. The other high prestige colleges (excluding USC) ignore you until they need to hit fundraising KPIs. A Tuck or Dartmouth College grad will always fight for an alum if they make it to the shortlist - most other Ivy grads don't (Wharton kinda, but that's only for Wharton). This really helps build loyalty. [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding-the-ivy-league-this-college-just-hired-a-staunch-ally-as-its-top-lawyer-00239635 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...
- ghaff 2y ago
  Dartmouth is smaller and has, historically, had a stronger and more intense ongoing alumni connection in various ways than is probably the norm with the Ivies in general.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > Dartmouth is smaller Yale and Dartmouth are similar in student body size, yet Yale has been hit by investigations [0] while Dartmouth has been spared. [0] - https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0 https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rig...
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Fair enough. Yale has more/bigger grad schools--though Dartmouth has tended to expand in that respect (though it doesn't have a law school).
- CPLX 2y ago
  Dartmouth is also famously the "conservative" Ivy.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    More "conservative" than Columbia but still fairly liberal - the overwhelming majority of students backed Harris [0] and support abortion rights [1] The Israel-Palestine protests (which sparked this whole university culture war issue) were fairly active at Dartmouth as well, but messaging around it was better handled by their admin. The only conservative-ish and kinda prestigious college (not university) I can think of is Claremont McKenna, but they are drowned out within the larger Claremont community. [0] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-election-at-dartmouth-majority-of-students-express-support-for-harris https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-election-a... [1] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-election-survey-students-show-dissatisfaction-biden-lacks-support https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-election-s...
- Balgair 2y ago
  The way I saw the Columbia protests was that Donny's trial was downtown, and because it was not televised, producers told their crews to stop filming the doors to the courthouse. So, looking for any story at all, they took the subway uptown to the hippies camping out on the quad. Hey, at least it's better than literally staring at a door, right? Next thing you know, the student protest thing blew up. Why? Because there was literally nothing else going on for the TV news crews to film those days. Soon as graduation happened and the trial wrapped up, we never heard another thing. Dartmouth, sure, it may have a high energy protest scene and be smart and whatever. But no-one knows about it - not because they are crafty - but because it's in freakin Hanover.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Dartmouth's time may still come. Brown is apparently about to be targeted next. Trump is clearly not done yet.
ty6853 2y ago
And NSF grants?
- carbocation 2y ago
  I’m not familiar with the NSF funding mechanisms or how people track NSF funding. Not saying NSF is not relevant, just that I’m not using it for my personal heuristic right now.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdlst2/default.asp https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdlst2/default.asp shows the NSF funding for Wesleyan. You can drill down and infer some of the details about the funding programs.
    - carbocation 2y ago
      Thank you. So, another de minimis amount ($1.8 million): it's not exactly zero, but it's just about as much as their NIH support. Columbia, as a comparator, gets $100 million in NSF funding.
      - dekhn 2y ago
        I also found a DOE grant, about $800K. I think this is the full list, NIH looks like a subset of overall HHS funding, and NSF is the actual single largest (around $2.5M) https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin=U3588001&id=h3 https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin=U3... Wesleyan falls into a really weird bucket: a private liberal arts university, generally considered a "little Ivy" with a modest, slightly better than its competitors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies) in terms of research clout. The impact of losing all scientific federal funding would be noticeable, but presumably, not fatal; I don't think they structured the operating costs of the university to be dependent on federal research funding like many other schools. I grew up at Wesleyan- both my parents worked there, it paid for my university education, gave me access to the internet in the 1980s (via NSF funding), and gave me insight into liberal education, all of which prepared me to go off to a California university, maximize my education, and deploy that into my career. I think many people don't recognize the intense second order effects (mostly positive) of federal funding of research.
drooby 2y ago
He states in the interview that Wesleyan has NIH grants. They are preparing to let scientists go if it comes to it.
- carbocation 2y ago
  Wesleyan does not have a medical center and according to the NIH’s public reporting, they have under $2 million in NIH grants, compared to $600 million for Columbia. (Edited from $400 million, which is the value cut.) Wesleyan has a $250 million operating budget, so the (from what REPORTER indicates) $1.6 million in NIH funding represents 0.6% of their budget. In contrast, the $600 million in NIH funding to Columbia represents about 10% of its $6 billion operating budget. So both in terms of absolute numbers and relative numbers, the NIH contributions to Wesleyan are de minimis.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    That makes a strong case for academic institutions not being substantially dependent on government research dollars.
    - dcrazy 2y ago
      No it doesn’t. The First amendment is supposed to prevent the government from conditionalizing access to government services based on the speech of the recipient. Private institutions are not subject to such restrictions. If we want to encourage academic freedom, we want to find this behavior by the government to be illegal.
      - insane_dreamer 2y ago
        > we want to find this behavior by the government to be illegal of course we do - but we're sadly discovering how easy it is for the government to target and coerce these universities, with nobody stepping up to stop them
        2y ago

alephnerd 2y ago

And if they hire the right alumni lobbyists - major reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth in the news [0] despite a similarly active student activism scene. Most other private universities could have easily managed the relationship, but a mix of inertia and vindictiveness from certain alumni (eg. Ackman) messed it up. Mind you, Dartmouth is also kind of unique in that their alumni relations team actually TRY to maintain a relationship. The other high prestige colleges (excluding USC) ignore you until they need to hit fundraising KPIs. A Tuck or Dartmouth College grad will always fight for an alum if they make it to the shortlist - most other Ivy grads don't (Wharton kinda, but that's only for Wharton). This really helps build loyalty. [0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding-the-ivy-league-this-college-just-hired-a-staunch-ally-as-its-top-lawyer-00239635 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...

ghaff 2y ago
Dartmouth is smaller and has, historically, had a stronger and more intense ongoing alumni connection in various ways than is probably the norm with the Ivies in general.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > Dartmouth is smaller Yale and Dartmouth are similar in student body size, yet Yale has been hit by investigations [0] while Dartmouth has been spared. [0] - https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0 https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/office-civil-rig...
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Fair enough. Yale has more/bigger grad schools--though Dartmouth has tended to expand in that respect (though it doesn't have a law school).
CPLX 2y ago
Dartmouth is also famously the "conservative" Ivy.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  More "conservative" than Columbia but still fairly liberal - the overwhelming majority of students backed Harris [0] and support abortion rights [1] The Israel-Palestine protests (which sparked this whole university culture war issue) were fairly active at Dartmouth as well, but messaging around it was better handled by their admin. The only conservative-ish and kinda prestigious college (not university) I can think of is Claremont McKenna, but they are drowned out within the larger Claremont community. [0] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-election-at-dartmouth-majority-of-students-express-support-for-harris https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/11/2024-election-a... [1] - https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-election-survey-students-show-dissatisfaction-biden-lacks-support https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2023/11/2023-election-s...
Balgair 2y ago
The way I saw the Columbia protests was that Donny's trial was downtown, and because it was not televised, producers told their crews to stop filming the doors to the courthouse. So, looking for any story at all, they took the subway uptown to the hippies camping out on the quad. Hey, at least it's better than literally staring at a door, right? Next thing you know, the student protest thing blew up. Why? Because there was literally nothing else going on for the TV news crews to film those days. Soon as graduation happened and the trial wrapped up, we never heard another thing. Dartmouth, sure, it may have a high energy protest scene and be smart and whatever. But no-one knows about it - not because they are crafty - but because it's in freakin Hanover.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Dartmouth's time may still come. Brown is apparently about to be targeted next. Trump is clearly not done yet.

ty6853 2y ago

And NSF grants?

carbocation 2y ago
I’m not familiar with the NSF funding mechanisms or how people track NSF funding. Not saying NSF is not relevant, just that I’m not using it for my personal heuristic right now.
- dekhn 2y ago
  https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdlst2/default.asp https://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/awdlst2/default.asp shows the NSF funding for Wesleyan. You can drill down and infer some of the details about the funding programs.
  - carbocation 2y ago
    Thank you. So, another de minimis amount ($1.8 million): it's not exactly zero, but it's just about as much as their NIH support. Columbia, as a comparator, gets $100 million in NSF funding.
    - dekhn 2y ago
      I also found a DOE grant, about $800K. I think this is the full list, NIH looks like a subset of overall HHS funding, and NSF is the actual single largest (around $2.5M) https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin=U3588001&id=h3 https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&tin=U3... Wesleyan falls into a really weird bucket: a private liberal arts university, generally considered a "little Ivy" with a modest, slightly better than its competitors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies) in terms of research clout. The impact of losing all scientific federal funding would be noticeable, but presumably, not fatal; I don't think they structured the operating costs of the university to be dependent on federal research funding like many other schools. I grew up at Wesleyan- both my parents worked there, it paid for my university education, gave me access to the internet in the 1980s (via NSF funding), and gave me insight into liberal education, all of which prepared me to go off to a California university, maximize my education, and deploy that into my career. I think many people don't recognize the intense second order effects (mostly positive) of federal funding of research.

drooby 2y ago

He states in the interview that Wesleyan has NIH grants. They are preparing to let scientists go if it comes to it.

carbocation 2y ago
Wesleyan does not have a medical center and according to the NIH’s public reporting, they have under $2 million in NIH grants, compared to $600 million for Columbia. (Edited from $400 million, which is the value cut.) Wesleyan has a $250 million operating budget, so the (from what REPORTER indicates) $1.6 million in NIH funding represents 0.6% of their budget. In contrast, the $600 million in NIH funding to Columbia represents about 10% of its $6 billion operating budget. So both in terms of absolute numbers and relative numbers, the NIH contributions to Wesleyan are de minimis.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  That makes a strong case for academic institutions not being substantially dependent on government research dollars.
  - dcrazy 2y ago
    No it doesn’t. The First amendment is supposed to prevent the government from conditionalizing access to government services based on the speech of the recipient. Private institutions are not subject to such restrictions. If we want to encourage academic freedom, we want to find this behavior by the government to be illegal.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      > we want to find this behavior by the government to be illegal of course we do - but we're sadly discovering how easy it is for the government to target and coerce these universities, with nobody stepping up to stop them
      - 2y ago