Current State of NAGT/USGS Cooperative Summer Fellowship Program Nominations

As many of you are aware, the NAGT/USGS Cooperative Fellowship program was ultimately suspended during the2024/2025 academic year due to a federal hiring freeze. We collected your nominations for student participants, they were invited to apply for internships with the USGS, and many of the nominees were placed on projects with USGS scientists... only to end up not being able to hire them in the end. This was—still is!—deeply disappointing to everyone involved in the process: you, the students, the USGS scientists, all of us at NAGT, and everyone who knows the value of this program. 

Unfortunately, that hiring freeze is still in place. To make things even more difficult, we are now in the midst of a federal government shutdown that is only adding to the uncertainty about the federal budget. This does not bode well for the NAGT/USGS Cooperative Fellowship Program for the 2025/2026 academic year.  However, we are hesitant to completely suspend the program for another year. Our growing fear is that repeated suspensions will make it even difficult to resurrect the program as folks move on to other opportunities and institutional memories fade. 

Although our USGS colleagues are currently on furlough, we were able to discuss options for moving forward before the shutdown. Here's the plan we propose: 

• We are soliciting nominations from department heads and field camp directors for the 2025/2026 fellowship program.  We will continue to use the regular October 30 deadline. Eligible students are those who:
  • Have current senior standing or have graduated with a geoscience degree within the last six months
  • Have successfully completed a capstone experience, which could include field camp, a senior research project or thesis, or similar experience that meets capstone learning outcomes
  • Show promise and for whom the internship could be transformative
  • Are US citizens (you do not need to verify their citizenship status)
• Students nominated for the 2024/2025 program last year are still eligible and do not need to be re-nominated.
• All students who are nominated will receive a certificate of nomination from NAGT (we will also send certificates to students who were nominated last year and were not able to participate).
• The USGS will make a decision about whether or not to solicit applications from nominated students when they are able to return to work and have more information about the federal budget and the hiring freeze. We hope to avoid asking students to go through the work of applying and interviewing if they cannot ultimately be hired for the internship, but we want to be prepared if the freeze is lifted.

We know that this is not an ideal situation or a permanent solution. We do want to continue to recognize students for their successful completion of a capstone experience and the promise they show for a career in the geosciences. Although a certificate of nomination is no replacement for the experience of an internship with a USGS scientist, we hope to at least provide the students with the recognition you have indicated they deserve based on your nomination. 

So, please nominate a student (or students) today, or by October 30. When you talk to the students you nominate, please let them know that it's possible, perhaps even likely, that the fellowship program will not happen, and we will do our best to keep everyone informed along the way. 

And if you are so inclined, call your senator or representative and tell them how this hiring freeze and shutdown is impacting your students—their constituents. NAGT's advocacy committee put together this resource about how to be an advocate for Earth science, and it can help you plan for that phone call.