Columbia University announced Tuesday that nearly 180 people whose salaries had been funded by federal research grants would be laid off, as the effect of the Trump administration’s cuts on the campus deepens.
Citing intense strain on Columbia’s finances and research mission, Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in the announcement that Columbia would also be “running lighter footprints of research infrastructure” in some areas affected by the cuts. The university, she added, is continuing to negotiate with the federal government for the return of the grants and is seeking alternative sources of funding.
“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” Ms. Shipman wrote in a note to the campus, which was also signed by other administrators. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”
