A masterpiece for island sustainability.  The University of Guam Center for Island Sustainability and Sea Grant Art Corps Program unveiling its newest mural by local artist Kamakanui’aha’ Aquino.  It’s part of an effort to highlight the island’s journey toward achieving sustainability by 2030. 

Dr. Sharleen Santos-Bamba, the acting president of UOG, told KUAM News, “Sea Grant alone–brings in tens of millions of dollars in grant funding. Sea Grant alone through the Research Corporation or the University of Guam–employs about 70 plus individuals.”

But could programs at the university, like Sea Grant, face jeopardy of losing federal grants due to a  federal freeze imposed by the Trump Administration? Dr. Santos-Bamba said, “I think so - there will be some impacts. What those impacts are remains to be seen. What we can say is that funding will either be decreased or taken away altogether for certain kind of grants depending on what the executive order is.”3:51

On Monday, a federal judge in Rhode Island finding the Trump Administration has not complied with an earlier order halting a sweeping federal funding freeze.  Still, Santos-Bamba says the university was informed of a pause on a climate justice grant to include others with more potentially in the works. 

And while those particular grants and funds are being reviewed at the federal level, UOG is already feeling the ripple impacts of the situation.  “The National Institutes of Health have sent us some information about indirect costs. So traditionally, it’s about 30% for indirect costs, which is revenue for the institution. They dropped that to 15%. So, we’re actually looking at about half of the amount of indirect costs. Which as a result, unfortunately, we’ve already sent letters to employees informing them of the furlough," she said.

Dr. Bamba underscoring the tangible impacts these decisions have on the local community. “These grants provide services to our community, and UOG just manages these grants—and we employ people from our community with these grant funding–which means that we have families already locally that are being impacted by these decisions," she said.