Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate federally-funded programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. That order could affect a wide range of programs in Alaska, from climate research to summer camps.
On any given day, a handful of projects are in motion at the Sitka Sound Science Center. In an upstairs room, a group is meeting to coordinate regional landslide monitoring. In another, a graduate student lowers urchins into a tank for a climate research project. And a few blocks away, a staff member is teaching kindergarteners about forces and motion on the elementary school playground.
“We’re in every single classroom here in Sitka every single year,” said Arleigh Reynolds, the Science Center’s Executive Director.
Reynolds oversees all of these programs. And right now, he’s wondering whether they’ll be funded next year.
Following Trump’s executive order, staff at the National Science Foundation and other agencies are flagging grants with a wide range of keywords, like “climate change” and “Indigenous communities.”
That could spell trouble for organizations like the Science Center, which gets about two-thirds of its funding from federal sources like the National Science Foundation. Reynolds said the executive order, combined with a freeze that paused federal grants last month, puts the center’s work in limbo.
“I think all the nonprofits are trying to figure out not just how to get through the next few weeks or this year, but how to, you know, how do we not just survive but continue to do the great work we all do long term,” he said.
Reynolds said he’s already thinking about reframing grant proposals for next year, avoiding words that might trigger scrutiny. He also plans to shift the focus from climate research to community preparedness for disasters like landslides.
“Hate to do that, but we’re in uncharted territory here, you know,” he said. “I think it’s better to to do something like that and then still be able to do the great work you do, than to lose the ability to do that work.”
He said the science center doesn’t have plans to lay off staff, and he’s cautiously optimistic that funding will stabilize.
“It isn’t just affecting red states or blue states or red people or blue people,” he said. “Everybody’s going to be impacted by this, and that’s why I have faith that it will, that the right things will prevail.”
On the other side of Lincoln Street, Sitka Fine Arts Camp Executive Director Roger Schmidt is wrestling with another set of federal guidelines. The camp, which serves kids from rural Alaska and 20 other states, has regularly received between $20,000 and $70,000 in annual funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for decades.
Earlier this month, the NEA eliminated a grant program targeted at underserved communities and announced that it would prioritize projects celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Schmidt said that isn’t likely to fly with his campers.
“If I say to our students, hey, we’re going to do Camp 2026, and the theme is going to be the Declaration of Independence, you know, that’s just not why the Fine Arts Camp is successful,” he said.
He said the camp is about fostering self-expression, which means not telling students what to create.
“What we want to hear from you, what we want to see from you is we want to see what you care about as an artist,” he said.
Schmidt said the camp will operate as usual this summer. In the long term, it could continue without NEA funding, but it could mean serving fewer students.
“The question is, how many scholarships do you want to provide to families that wouldn’t be able to afford this service?” he said. “Or how much of Alaska do you want to serve?”
In the meantime, both nonprofit leaders in Sitka – Schmidt and Reynolds – said they won’t let uncertainty get in the way of their work.
