11-04-2025
Santa Fe humanities research center loses grant amid Trump cuts
As the Trump administration continues to prioritize spending cuts and sweeping change across the federal government, a Santa Fe-based humanities research institution has been notified a $900,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been canceled.
The School for Advanced Research, formerly known as the School of American Research, was recently informed a significant grant to support improvements for its Indian Arts Research Center is being cut, according to school President Morris Foster. The campus offers scholar residency, seminar and artist fellowship programs, among other things.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has canceled most of its grant programs and last week started putting staff on administrative leave, The New York Times reports. Foster said the letter notifying the School for Advanced Research about the funding cut read, in part: "Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government.'
This follows the Trump administration slashing funding for the New Mexico Humanities Council last week in similar fashion, meaning several arts, culture and history programs around the state will lose funds.
The "4-to-1" challenge grant, for which the School for Advanced Research had raised its own funds, was aimed at refreshing the furnishing and storage for the 12,000-item collection in the Indian Arts Research Center, which houses Indigenous textiles, pottery and jewelry. The collection carries items dating back to 500 A.D. and forward to the present, focusing on Native pueblos and nations in New Mexico and the Southwest.
The National Endowment for the Arts did not immediately respond to emailed questions on Wednesday.
Foster said the improvements project at the research facility's Indian Arts Research Center will continue with or without the grant, noting the research center is approaching the halfway point in its $4.6 million fundraising goal for the initiative.
"We will do it," Foster said of the project. "It's unfortunate we will not have the NEH's help in getting there, but we will get there."
The National Endowment for the Humanities, small compared to some other federal agencies, has provided more than $6.4 billion to support more than 70,000 projects in the U.S. since its inception in 1965, according to its website. Many museums and other organizations rely on the agency as a key source of funding.
In terms of impact in the Land of Enchantment, the agency's website states it issued $9.8 million from the 2019 to 2023 financial years to support 52 projects in New Mexico.
An award highlight listed on the website is funding for the University of New Mexico so it could pursue research and create a book on the "contribution made by native speakers of the indigenous South American language Quechua to the writing system during the colonial era."
Foster said donors have responded with donations since learning about the $900,000 grant being cut.
Foster penned a message to the campus' network of constituents through an email list, according to Meredith Schweitzer, a spokesperson for the School for Advanced Research.
"We must not think about the state of the humanities as losing ground, because how we frame that question — 'decline,' 'losing,' 'threatened' — shapes how we think about the societal value of the humanities more broadly," Foster wrote in the message. "The humanities will always be part of us and cannot be diminished by withdrawing a grant."
