1 of 2. See 2.
So many times in so many, many years, we are captivated by news from Washington yet breathe relief that as dramatic as it is, it doesn’t hit all that close.
Not this year, oh boy. U.S. colleges and universities in recent weeks got the same memos, more or less literally.
On Jan. 31, 2025, the University of Arkansas Provost Terry Martin sent to all faculty and all staff the email “Updated Guidance on Federal for the U of A Community.” For elaboration, an attached memo whose top signature was Martin’s pointed to a memo from the U.S. Office of Managment and Budget (PDF) and to 2025 Administration Transition Information and Resources from the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) that essentially said work should continue on federally funded projects until direct or specific “stop work” orders arrived. In a Feb. 12 follow-up email that at least White House order is wending through the courts, Martin & co. noted that the university is maintaining its own 2025 Federal Transition Guidance for Researchers.
Our university’s mission has three prongs: education of course but also research and service to the state. UA leadership in recent years emphasizes we’re a research university. There’s federal funding in many aspects of all these.
In the extreme case, some projects may end and some jobs lost. To reduce that risk, projects may be reorganized and their texts reworded to comply. The threat to research projects perhaps is obvious, but U of A outreach or service programs are being impacted as well as student admissions, scholarships and the like.
The new U.S. president wants the bucks to stop citing claims and promises he made in his election campaigns.
My point is not to join the critique of the changes (so tempting) but to remind us UA workers that the faculty and leadership facing these challenges likely don’t own MAGA caps. They want to preserve as much as they can, and they see little advantage in objecting out loud. We should support them with respect and discretion.
They’re invited to join our union, by the way.
Union membership is an act of resistance that can bring concrete results and not just mere symbolic opposition. What else? I’d suggest listening to colleagues and friends, directly or via social media, for resistance ideas or acts like protests or boycotts. Real resistance comes with real risk. I don’t blame any of us a bit for being cautious! But the worse matters get, the more appealing stronger nonviolent resistance will be along with a drop risk aversion.
I don’t have further direct suggestions than Local 965 membership today. In weeks we of the 965 just might. After lots of thought I have come up with one concrete act for myself. After the Inauguration I added my pronouns to the signature of my work email. What took so long? My inner editor whined: Emails are in the second person — me writing YOU — and pronouns are a third-person construct. This employment of personal pronouns, though, hits more than grammar.
Not saying my modest step will tell them not to deny funds to deserving sectors. Just that resistance totals dozens of smaller and sometimes larger steps.
This column was first published as an Editor’s Note column by UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965 Vice President Ben Pollock in the February 2025 newsletter of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965.
© 2025 Ben S. Pollock Jr.
