Ed. Note: We want to thank Randy Hall, PhD, for his leadership as ASPET’s President, and for his contributions to The Pharmacologist. His monthly columns always gave a candid view to the challenges facing scientists, and offered both compassion and tools to meet those obstacles. This final column is a wonderful example of his work and, as with all of his essays this past year, we’re excited to share it with you.
This is my final week serving as President of ASPET. What will be remembered as my legacy?
I was elected as ASPET President in 2024, a time when all seemed to be going well for American science. By the time my one-year term began in mid-2025, though, American science was under siege from anti-science elements within our own government. Massive funding cuts to the NIH and other science agencies were being pursued by the new administration. One of the central purposes of ASPET and other scientific societies is to facilitate collective action of scientists in times of crisis. Thus, I spent much of my year as ASPET President helping to organize our members to push back against research funding cuts, and coordinating with other scientific societies to magnify our efforts.
The past year’s efforts have been at least somewhat successful in preventing American science from being gutted. For example, the NIH budget was NOT cut by 40%, as the administration proposed, but in fact received a 1% increase. Also, grants are slowly being funded now after a near-stop in early 2025. These outcomes mainly reflect the reality that the vast majority of American citizens believe that paying for life-saving research discoveries to better treat cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes is an outstanding use of taxpayer dollars. By helping to amplify this widely held view, the advocacy efforts by scientific societies like ASPET undeniably played a part in holding the line for research funding. Obviously, the work is not done. The current administration is still trying to find ways to cut research funding and otherwise harm American science. Thus, scientific societies, patient groups, and others who value research need to keep fighting and spreading the word for the next two years and beyond.
The American government has a long history of enthusiastic bipartisan support for scientific research. When I was elected as President of ASPET, I certainly did not envision that so much of my time in that role would be spent trying to convince our own government of the value of research funding. Instead, I had imagined that we would spend the year of my presidency launching all kinds of new initiatives to benefit ASPET members, especially students. We DID start several important new programs in the past year (including the ASPET Leadership Academy, the ASPET PRIME-Educator Program, and the ASPET SOS Travel Awards), but an unexpectedly large amount of bandwidth was taken up by the advocacy efforts.
I imagine that many leaders (in business, government, and academia) experience similar feelings: there is always more they hope to accomplish than time allows, yet much of their energy is ultimately devoted to responding to unforeseen events. No leader gets to choose their own legacy, because no one can control the circumstances of their time in office. What leaders can control is how they respond to challenges, and it is those choices for which they are ultimately remembered. I am proud of all that was accomplished by ASPET in the past year, and I look forward to another important year ahead.
Sincerely,
Randy Hall, PhD
President, ASPET
