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The world moves fast. Daybreak keeps you up-to-date.
Enjoy everything you need to know to stay informed — on campus and off — in this digestible, efficient podcast. Daybreak is produced by Maya Mukherjee '27, Twyla Colburn '27, Sheryl Xue '28 under the 149th Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian. The theme music was composed and performed by Ed Horan, and the cover art is by Mark Dodici.
Sunrise Princeton on Breaking up with BP and the Research Funding Freeze — Friday, Feb. 14th
[Theme music begins]
For the Daily Princetonian, I’m Anastasiya Chernitska. You’re listening to Daybreak.
Today, we take you inside Sunrise Princeton’s Break Up with BP campaign launch, cover plans for organizing under Trump, and finish out by understanding the research funding freeze.
[Theme music ends]
It’s Friday, February 14th.
Sunrise Princeton is taking a stand by calling on the University to cut ties with BP through its Break Up campaign. I spoke with co-coordinator of Sunrise, Charlie Yale to hear more about the potential impacts of a funding freeze on climate research at Princeton and why Sunrise seeks to cut ties with BP. Yale is an assistant Opinion editor for the ‘Prince.’
[Event interview]
Charlie: So, my name is Charlie Yale. I'm a first year and I am a co-coordinator of sunrise, along with Isaac Barsoum.
Anastasiya: What is Sunrise Princeton's mission?
Charlie: Yeah, Sunrise Princeton, our mission is a fossil-free university, which means divestment from our endowment, dissociation from like academic programs to lead towards a fossil free world that is socially and economically just.
Anastasiya: I recently saw that there was an event held to launch a campaign to Break Up with BP. Could you expound on that?
Charlie: BP and Princeton are in an interesting relationship. Princeton began a dissociation process, I believe in 2022. BP was still, still involved with the university through its CMI, the Carbon Mitigation Institute housed at the High Meadows Environmental Institute. The CMI was founded, I believe, in 2000 on a grant from BP, and they have been like, under contract with the university ever since. So that's 25 years. We're starting this campaign Get out BP, Break Up with BP now, because the university has a contract coming up that it, that it needs to decide what to do with BP.
BP uses research from the CMI to, like, legitimize itself, advance communications campaigns to promote natural gas and boost its credibility as a climate leader, even though it is contributing to the climate crisis, which is causing natural disasters across the country. So we think that Princeton should not be adding credibility to BP through co-signing its research as one of the most prestigious research institutions in the country. We think it is time that Princeton break up with BP and, and that we end our relationship and the CMI, we find the CMI another source of funding.
Anastasiya: There has been news about Donald Trump's funding freeze for the sciences. How could this stand to impact CMI, HMEI and other Princetonian research initiatives?
Charlie: Yeah. So the research cuts obviously put a lot of people at this university in a lot of jeopardy. There's a lot of uncertainty over what's actually happening with this money, whether or not we're going to get it, etc, etc. But what that does mean is that private funders right now, like BP, have more influence than ever, like they are sort of in power in a way that they haven't before.
Anastasiya: All right, thank you so much. Your answers were super informative.
Also at risk for funding cuts under the Trump administration's new guidelines are NIH funded research projects at Princeton. A new directive from the NIH caps overhead costs, which cover equipment and other administrative costs, to 15 percent. Princeton’s overhead costs currently sit at 64%. On Monday, University Provost Jennifer Rexford ‘91 submitted a declaration of support alongside a lawsuit seeking a temporary freeze to the new policy. Although the lawsuit does not include Princeton, 16 plaintiffs, including three universities in the Ivy League, are demanding its reversal, writing that its implementation [quote] “will devastate medical research at America’s university.” . In her own declaration, Rexford emphasized the importance of NIH grants in driving innovation and allowing Princeton to collaborate with other universities on research. As of today, a federal judge has placed a temporary restraining order on the new directive, and a hearing has been set for February 21.
Today, you can expect partly cloudy skies, with a high of 36 and a low of 23 degrees fahrenheit.
That’s all for Daybreak today.
Today’s episode was written by Charlotte Young, and me, sound engineered by me, and produced under the 149th Managing Board of the ‘Prince.’ Our theme was composed by Ed Horan, Class of ‘22. For The Daily Princetonian, I’m Anastasiya Chernitska. Have a wonderful day.