Imagine stepping into your first classes in college, eager to build momentum, only to feel lost or overwhelmed. Eager to find a sense of community and belonging in this brand-new setting, your eyes scan posters on bulletin boards. You’re hit with a wave of relief as you read about all the resources Trinity has in place to support you. As you navigate through college, you realize how positive an impact on-campus programs and resources can have. You think to yourself, “programs like AXIS have served as such a guide for me to foster achievement, I’m glad they continue to exist…”
Success that a student finds in school can largely be gauged by how much support they receive. This support can be defined as a certain type of inclusivity; making students feel that they have a sense of community and belonging. Trinity places a huge emphasis on this kind of intentional inclusion. Students of lower socioeconomic class or income level entering college can come from backgrounds with little support. For these students, the retention, completion and performance rates of higher education are boosted by programs that stress intentional inclusivity.
As of February 2025, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the largest private funder of biomedical research, killed its university-based inclusion program, Inclusive Excellence in Education (IE3). The yearly grant given to Trinity by IE3 was used to create and fund Ambassadors for eXcellence in STEM (AXIS).
AXIS was a student-led leadership council that promoted inclusivity and wellness for students entering Trinity’s STEM programs, as well as student support and inclusion in STEM introductory courses. The program also took on projects, mainly assessments from faculty and students, with the goal of targeting barriers to inclusion. Ambassadors in AXIS implement the program’s mission through social events, surveys and student accessibility announcements.
Unfortunately, the IE3 program that was supposed to be active for six years ended in about three — leading to a loss of funding that keeps the AXIS program running.
Not all students have an equal amount of external support necessary to succeed in college, which is why programs such as IE3 and AXIS should exist. Defunding the IE3-AXIS program leads to neglecting a critical aspect of Trinity — diverse environments in classrooms. As a result, there is a greater likelihood of reduced socioeconomic representation. This reduction is evident given the obvious fact that students from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds often lack domestic and financial support, which is necessary to pursue and stick with STEM degrees.
The large deficits in funding and the ending of the AXIS program contribute to what is called the diversity-innovation paradox. The paradox professes that diversity of socioeconomic background breeds innovation, yet underrepresented groups are less likely to get the support and recognition for their novel contributions in STEM fields. AXIS’s projects attempt to prevent the diversity-innovation paradox from affecting STEM curriculum at Trinity through events such as “Circle Space” and “Belonging In STEM,” and contests like “Building An Ecosystem Of Belonging.” These get-togethers aim to overcome issues such as imposterism by fostering thoughtful conversations regarding inclusion. They created a sense of belonging, essentially giving underprivileged students the support and recognition they often don’t receive.
Without IE3’s and AXIS’s influence, structural inequalities that fail to recognize the strength of diversity deepen. To put it simply, the importance of diversity in the classroom — fueled by AXIS’s project — has been put on the back burner. The local counterweight that has worked to protect and recognize STEM students of underrepresented groups no longer exists.
If students don’t feel that they belong and have a support system, what is stopping them from abandoning their dreams in STEM and switching majors? Are we negatively impacting the future generation of scientists, engineers or doctors by ridding universities of these programs?
While the funding cuts are huge for Trinity, the over $500,000 given to Trinity is chump change for HHMI. At a national level, the funding being cut from Trinity goes unnoticed. As HHMI continues to fund biomedical research, they have yet to give a reason for why they killed the program, and whether the funds were being allocated to a more consequential purpose. While there has been no official reasoning, there have been speculations that the rise of recent anti-DEI culture has pressured HHMI’s actions. In my eyes, the IE3 program should not have been defunded, especially without a specific reason.
Now, organizations and individuals against affirmative action can argue that defunding IE3 and AXIS was reasonable because these programs place too much emphasis on an individual’s background and ethnicity, undermining the importance of merit, work ethic and a student’s accomplishments. However, this point is illogical because admission and success in higher education are still largely influenced by a student’s effort. All the AXIS program does is give students who are inherently disadvantaged support. It does not magically change a student’s GPA or hand some individuals more success in college over others. Ultimately, those who display grit and perseverance over time end up succeeding the most.
AXIS only acts as a helping hand by attempting to keep the system in favor of STEM students. And while this program directly focuses on increasing diversity, it does not seek to give handouts or unfair opportunities to certain students. It simply seeks to prove that “diversity breeds innovation” and level the playing field by making sure every student gets equal support in college. The environment that the AXIS program created, and the recognition it drew for underprivileged students, exemplifies why inclusion-based programs should not be defunded. Its fall only proves how negatively impactful the government’s anti-DEI culture is.
