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Congress Averts Another Government Shutdown

Last week, President Biden signed the Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act (H.R. 6363) thus preventing a government shutdown. The bill sets two different deadlines for different bills: there is a January 19 deadline for Congress to pass the FY24 Agriculture-FDA, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD bills and a February 2 deadline for the remaining eight appropriations bills. The bill does not include any supplemental funding or cuts to existing levels of funding.

So far, the House has passed seven of the 12 annual government-funding bills, while the Senate has passed only three. Congress is on Thanksgiving recess and when they return will have to do significant work into 2024 to meet these two deadlines. Read more about this here.

President Cauce Visits DC!

A few weeks ago, President Cauce visited Washington D.C. to meet with members of the Washington congressional delegation. During these meetings, President Cauce discussed the overall state of the institution as we close down FY24 and previewed the university’s priorities for the following year. She also had the opportunity to thank our delegation for being champions of higher education, science, and research. We look forward to working together alongside our delegation to continue to lead Washington state to the forefront of cutting edge research and quality education.

President Cauce also had the wonderful opportunity of attending the EDGE Consortium Fall Summit where members spoke on the importance of investing in the next generation of scientists and engineers, focusing on women and underrepresented groups in the engineering and STEM workforce. Senator Cantwell spoke and met with President Cauce as they work together towards creating a more inclusive STEM workforce.

OSTP Virtual Public Listening Sessions on Open Science

This week and next week, the White House Office of Science & Technology (OSTP) is hosting a series of live sessions aimed at listening to the perspectives of early career researchers on open science. OSTP is seeking input from undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows as well as those involved in training and capacity building, including librarians, educators, and administrators. Participants will have the opportunity to speak during the session and should indicate their interest in doing so in the registration form.

Please visit the links below to register for any of the four upcoming virtual listening sessions. The listening sessions are as follows:

For more information on the sessions, click here.

Graduate Student & Professional Senate Leaders Take D.C.

This week, four graduate student leaders from UW’s Graduate Student & Professional Senate (GPSS) visited Washington D.C. to meet with Congressional staff and advocate for their priorities as graduate students across the country and in Washington specifically. The annual trip to D.C. was put on hold the past few years due to the pandemic, making this year’s visit a great opportunity to reconnect with offices in person and update them on graduate student concerns. The group, which included A.J. Balatico (GPSS President), Kaustubh Yadav (GPSS and SAGE Communications Director), Janis Shin (TABS Chair), and Ella Spurlock (GPSS Exec Senator, Science and Policy Chair), met with 11 of the Washington delegation’s offices where they discussed support for higher education, international students, and research opportunities and advocated for efforts to diversify academic pipelines, ease the visa processes for international students, and expand direct financial support to graduate students.