The Graduate Student Council passed resolutions urging the university to implement protections for researchers affected by federal funding cuts and international graduate students on March 4 and 28, respectively. The former resolution passed unanimously; the latter passed with all in favor and one abstention.
Both resolutions speak to uncertainties surrounding new federal policies. One calls for the university to “unambiguously commit in writing” that it will financially support all graduate workers should they lose research funding without implementing additional work or service requirements. The other alleges that the university has thus far failed to protect its international students from immigration enforcement and to recognize risks to international students’ current research and future careers.
According to 2024-25 GSC President Bill Smith, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate, any graduate student may propose a resolution. To present it at a general body meeting, the author must have at least three named co-sponsors, who are voting members of the general body. Voting is held in-person or virtually via AnchorLink, and a simple majority passes the resolution, which the GSC president then delivers to the appropriate university officials. The resolution calling for protections for international students was the first in GSC history that permitted the author and some co-sponsors to be listed anonymously.
“I decided to allow this [anonymity] despite the GSC’s strong precedent against it…given the larger political climate,” Smith said. “I have pointed out the horrible irony of a university that so publicly touts its commitment to freedom of expression and civil discourse yet has students who do not feel safe publicly identifying themselves in the most civil and university-sanctioned process they have available for advocating to their own administrators.”
Defunded research
After passing the resolution calling for protections against funding loss, Smith said GSC leadership had “an initial productive discussion” with administrators that has since stagnated.
“While that conversation was encouraging, since then, the GSC leadership has only received a courtesy email signed by Provost C. Cybele Raver and [Graduate School] Dean André Christie-Mizell, assuring us that they are continuing to work on these issues without any details on what that means,” Smith said.
Christie-Mizell also emailed all graduate students on April 30 — within the two weeks called for in the GSC’s resolution — to provide updates on the university’s recent actions “to support [its] research and graduate communities.” For researchers whose federal grant awards have been terminated, the university has been evaluating individual cases to determine whether an appeal is feasible; if so, it is the university’s discretion whether to pursue the appeal. The university declined to specify to The Hustler its criteria for determining which appeals to file.
In that same communication, Christie-Mizell announced the launch of the Provost Discovery Bridge Funding Program, which provides financial support for three to six months to principal investigators whose funding has been disrupted.
“[This] is one of several measures we have implemented to preserve research continuity and ensure that vital scholarship can move forward across all disciplines,” the email reads.
Some faculty in the university’s LGBTQ+ Policy Lab, which lost $9.6 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health following recent federal policy changes, reported being denied bridge funding from A&S. The university has prohibited all faculty from appealing directly to the NIH, according to professor Tara McKay.
Smith told The Hustler that he does not view Christie-Mizell’s statement as a response to the GSC’s resolution.
“I view the concerns raised in the resolutions as the GSC’s response to [Dean Christie-Mizell’s] statement and others like it by Vanderbilt’s administration, which have been little changed since early February,” Smith said. “The resolutions represent issues the GSC feels have not been adequately addressed and how the GSC would like to see them addressed.”
Threats to international students
Christie-Mizell’s April 30 email also referenced services offered by the university’s International Student and Scholar Services team — services with which the GSC has alleged flaws.
“[The ISSS] is structurally under-resourced and lacks the capacity to adequately address the heightened legal, emotional and logistical challenges posed by the current [Trump] administration’s immigration policies — leaving many students without the robust guidance, legal advocacy or emergency response systems needed to navigate the present context,” the resolution reads.
The resolution also cites the university’s past public actions to defend its international students. In 2017, former Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos signed a letter urging Trump to “rectify or rescind” his ‘Muslim ban’ executive order. In 2020, the university joined an amicus brief supporting Harvard and MIT’s lawsuit against ICE for a policy requiring international students to leave the U.S. if their classes were fully online. That year, Vanderbilt also petitioned the Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its proposal limiting international student visas to two- or four-year terms.
“Whereas Vanderbilt previously publicly opposed the 2017 travel ban and international student visa restrictions in 2020, it has remained silent on recent executive orders and threats affecting international students,” the resolution reads.
The GSC resolution requests that Vanderbilt use official statements and letters, as well as legal action, to oppose Trump’s executive orders targeting international students, limit surveillance of students in protests, organizations and other public forums; refuse to share personally identifiable information with federal agencies; protect students from immigration enforcement; and provide financial support to aid students in “maintaining or defending their immigration status,” as well as meeting other basic needs if necessary.
The university declined The Hustler’s request for comment on its response to the GSC’s resolution and instead reiterated the services offered by ISSS.
Smith said that GSC leadership, too, has yet to receive a response to this resolution, as of publication. Though they had scheduled a meeting with Christie-Mizell for April 29, they received a less-than-24-hours’ notice postponing the meeting “without further explanation.”
“I am hopeful that [rescheduled] conversation leads to actions on the part of the administration outlined in the resolutions that begin alleviating the fears and uncertainties that the graduate student body, particularly the international student body, is living with every day,” Smith said in an email to The Hustler.
