KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — A Fulbright Award-winning scientist is no longer planning to come to Western Michigan University next fall after the U.S. State Department announced it was withdrawing a grant.
A government official said the decision was made following “changing priorities of the (White House) administration.”
Javier Becerril Garcia, a professor from Mexico, was slated to spend nine months at WMU teaching courses, helping develop curriculums and engaging with the local community. His specialty is “decoloniality” or “degrowth” and how climate change impacts the economies of vulnerable populations.
Allen Webb, an English professor at WMU, was set to co-teach a class with Garcia focused on the social and cultural dimensions of climate change. He said this is an especially important time to have a closer relationship with Mexico to collaborate and learn how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The kind of thing the grant offered was an opportunity to work across countries to develop understanding of each other and define strategies that would help us address the climate crisis,” he said. “The climate crisis is coming at us like a freight train… We’ve got to take action to solve the planet crisis so we have a planet that’s going to be livable to us all.”
Webb told News 8 that Garcia, his wife and his 9-year-old daughter were set to move in August. His housing and his daughter’s schooling were already arranged. He said he found out about the cancellation in an email that said the program was “no longer consistent with the administration’s priorities.”
“It’s pretty much unheard of for a Fulbright grant to be canceled like that, especially without any more explanation or reasoning,“ he said.
His students were excited to learn about climate impacts, mitigation and adaptation in Mexico and the global south and were disappointed in this cancellation.
“I was really devastated,” Abigail Jueckstock, a WMU junior studying freshwater sustainability and science, said. “I thought it would be really interesting to hear different perspectives… I want to fight climate change, so it’s a blow to think that I’m going into something that’s not appreciated.”
Damaris Potter, a senior in environmental sustainability and political science at WMU, told News 8 the decision raises bigger concerns about federal support for climate education.
“For the Trump administration, I think it’s really easy to have a message like his about prosperity, about building business and helping our industries,” Potter said. “It’s really easy to appeal to people and it’s very individualistic, but if we’re going to have a world that’s relying on sustainable practices, it has to be collective.”
The WMU Climate Change Working Group said the simple loss will have a wide-ranging impact even beyond campus.
Mia Breznau, a WMU student and a leader with the local Ardea Youth Climate Coalition, was working on plans to have Garcia talk to local schools about the impacts of climate change. She says the White House’s decision to cut education funding is “unacceptable.”
“It speaks volumes that this administration’s first attack was on our world’s brightest minds. We see the track this country is heading on, and students like myself will not stand for this mistreatment of experts and suppression of knowledge,” Breznau stated.
