PORTLAND, Maine - A number of research students at the University of Southern Maine are considering their options today after learning they could lose thousands of dollars in research fellowships because their programs are being eliminated. It's all part of USM's ongoing mission to balance the books by cutting millions from its annual budget.
Jillian King is hard at work in the research lab - one of several labs at that comprise USM's department of Applied Medical Science - one of the programs slated for elimination by the university in a bid to close a projected budget gap of $16 million in the upcoming financial year. Fifty USM faculty positions are also going.
King is in the first semester of a two-year masters program, after which she hopes to pursue a doctorate. Her particular area of interest is vaccine development. But speaking amid the hum of lab machinery, King says she fears her future is in jeopardy.
"I feel angry, and also just in limbo, because we haven't really heard anything official about what's going on, and that's frustrating," she says.
The last she heard from the university was a recent email, telling her that a $6,000 fellowship awarded her would not be approved because the Applied Medical Science, or AMS, program is being scrapped. The grant is funded through of a program run jointly by NASA and the Maine Space Grant Consortium. King was planning to use the fellowship to study how organisms react to extreme environments.
In addition to missing out on the fellowship, King also stands to lose the help she receives in the form of a research assistant-ship, which pays her for working in the lab - all of which, she says, puts her under a great deal of personal strain.
"I am a single mother of a 5-year-old boy, so having a graduate assistant-ship and getting a fellowship, things like that, make it possible for me to be a full-time student and be a mother," she says.
Jillian King is not the only student faced with the loss of grant money due to the cuts. Three undergraduates also received NASA fellowships from the Maine Space Grant Consortium - each worth $3,000.
Associate Virology Professor S. Monroe Duboise is adviser to the grant recipients, but he's due to be laid off at the end of the year as part of the cuts. He also fears the research lab he runs will be shut down. "We're the only lab doing this kind of work in the state, as far as I know," he says.
University administrators say all affected students will still be able to finish their degree through individualized "teach out" plans. In the case of Applied Medical Science, Duboise doesn't see how people like Jillian King could complete her degree, with the lab closed, and the faculty gone.
"I don't see how it could happen," he says. "I think they have not thought this through, and they need our input in making that happen, and they need to show some flexibility in the time frame of phasing out this department."
"We have a responsibility to these students," says USM spokesman Chris Quint. Quint says the university is looking for ways to enable the four students to keep fellowship grants. "We are working to find them new advisers that will be able to work with those students so they can continue with their projects and continue to receive the grant from the Maine Space Grant Consortium."
He says USM would be happy to consider re-hiring laid-off faculty as advisers for the fellowship programs. Quint says many details are still being worked out, but he does point out that all the lab equipment in the AMS program is grant-funded, rather than paid for by the university - which means the labs may not have to be closed down after all.
