CTRL Student Partners: Perspectives on the Political Climate (Spring 2025)

The CTRL Student Partners want to acknowledge the hurt, anger, and fear some are experiencing with the change in our country’s political leadership. It is important that students’ voices are heard as faculty and staff consider how to teach, work, and support themselves and others in this context and political climate.

To raise awareness about what students are experiencing, we asked for open and honest responses to the question: How has the change in the US administration affected your educational experience at AU? Below are word-for-word responses from students, organized by theme that demonstrate a variety of perspectives. These responses were collected through an anonymous survey distributed by student partners to their friends and classmates in February 2025. The CTRL Student Partners recognize that faculty and staff share many of these concerns and are faced with their own challenges as well; by working together and remaining focused on a positive future, we can build a stronger, safer, and more resilient campus community.

After the responses, there are suggestions and resources for faculty, staff, and students.

How has the change in the US administration affected your educational experience at AU?

Academic & Career Impacts

  • I lost an internship I was really passionate about, and I feel like my degree (SIS) was so focused on the federal government that I don’t feel like I’m well equipped for other jobs like business
  • I have a job where I edit for an NSF-funded journal on campus, and everyone on that team is nervous about losing the grant and not being able to fund our research anymore.
  • Those who wanted government jobs are terrified and many are now planning to go into grad school to wait out the administration, which in turn makes me terrified as the application process will be far more competitive than before.
  • As an American University student, I have not experienced any negative effects on my educational experience due to the recent change in the U.S. administration. My academic pursuits, campus activities, and interactions with faculty and peers have continued as usual, without any noticeable impact from the political transition.
  • My old roommate, an SIS major, everything he studies is about Latin American migration and he’s like ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how I’m going to get a job.’
  • As an international student who will graduate soon, my immediate thought is I can just leave. I don’t have to be here. I don’t have to experience all of this. I don’t have to be in this environment.

Personal & Emotional Impacts

  • The change most apparent is the fear I have and those around me have.
  • Emotionally it’s devastating to me, as it is for all of us, to get the news headlines every day and to fear what’s behind those.
  • As someone who’s not from this area I also have concerns at home. A lot of my friends are at public universities in Texas who are being impacted a lot more directly academically.
  • Specifically in terms of anti-trans stuff I’ve had a lot of concerns, particularly regarding my own future transition and my sister’s because my sister is also trans. She recently got her ID changed to female, and so now she’s worried if that’s going to affect her passport or her federal identification and all of that.
  • The constant unknowns happening in politics makes everything much harder than it should be. Focusing on classes seems pointless, the anxiety over my friends and family’s future is ever present and not knowing how this will affect American University specifically just further complicates things.
  • I’m stressed constantly about if the field I want to have a job in will be affected, if I’ll be safe to travel as a trans person, if my family’s jobs might be affected, so little feels solid
  • I’ve generally felt more nervous and concerned that the academic bubble of AU will soon be popped. I’m worried about the public’s access to information, and I believe that we should be using our resources at AU to provide more community support rather than complying and accepting defeat.
  • The change in administration has not affected my educational experience at all. What has, is the overall pessimistic view of the world since the change. What happens happened, and we grow with it. The continual negativity will not change the course of our future for the better, and this attitude is the most influential for most if not all students and people in general.

Financial Impacts

  • The change in the US administration has made my time at AU much more stressful financially for the most part. As a straight male I do not have to face many of the social hardships brought on by the Trump presidency, but I do still feel the financial impact as someone who buys their own groceries I really feel it every day.
  • I think the biggest thing that comes to mind is financially, like all of our loans being threatened, scholarships, grants… all of those things are front of mind.
  • I have not yet been financially affected, however the potential for the financial aid which allows me to attend this university to be cut has caused extreme emotional stress and affected my academics.

What can faculty, staff, and students do to help each other navigate what’s happening?

The following suggestions are word-for-word responses from students:

  • I’ve appreciated having the spaces to work through these things as a community. It’s very reassuring to understand other people are invested in the same kind of work.
  • For our age group, this is really new and shocking. It’s new and shocking for every age group, but for faculty and staff there’s a level of ‘we’ve seen some of these things before’ that the student age group doesn’t have. So, I think a lot of professors have been trying to provide perspective on how certain elements have been resisted in the past, either in the US or in other places.
  • Provide and amplify resources for students on things like how to respond to ICE or what to do now that your job offer is gone. I think that hearing from a professor saying, ‘just because I’m an expert in this field for this reason, I still want to amplify what the communities are saying and how we can promote safety and well-being.’

Resources for Faculty from CTRL Teaching & Learning Team

The following resources can help you to think through how to respond in your classroom:

Resources to Share with Students

Responding to General Legislative Changes against Identity Groups

Supporting Immigrants & Responding to ICE

Responding to Career Shifts