Feb. 6, 2025

To Our URI Community,

Our executive leadership team, and many dedicated members of our community, are actively evaluating the rapidly evolving situation with federal orders and offering support and information to those who are most impacted.

To that end, I want to share two actions we are taking today.

New Federal Actions Website

This morning, we introduced a new Federal Actions Updates website. The site will serve as a central hub of information, with links to research funding and compliance guidelines, the latest campus messages, and University resources and offices, as well as guidance regarding visits or inquiries by non-URI law enforcement officers. You can find the site at uri.edu/federal-actions/.

Leadership Team on Federal Actions

The federal actions impact many areas of our University, and our dedicated teams have been working tirelessly to understand the implications to our community. To help coordinate our efforts, we have formed a working group—the Leadership Team on Federal Actions—which convened earlier today. 

Led by the provost, this team is carefully monitoring the orders from Washington, D.C. I am grateful to members of our community who have taken on this added charge, with representation from many URI offices, including academic affairs; administration and finance; general counsel; research administration; human resources; government relations; community, equity, and diversity; communications; and the president’s office.

This team will monitor and report on emerging federal actions and their potential impact to URI; identify additional task forces as needed to assess the specific impacts on the URI community and recommend mitigation strategies; make recommendations to the President’s Executive Council on decisions and actions to take to address these impacts in a timely and future-oriented manner; develop an effective communication strategy with the URI community and external stakeholders; and follow up to ensure that decisions are implemented in a timely fashion.

I am encouraged by the many ways in which our community has come together in support of one another and our vital work. Together, we will navigate these changes as one URI community.

Kind regards,

Marc