{"id":811,"date":"2015-02-19T12:09:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T20:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=811"},"modified":"2015-02-19T12:10:10","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T20:10:10","slug":"811","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/811\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty senate passes divestment resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
By LAURA KNUDSON\r\n Editor-in-Chief<\/pre>\n
The faculty senate is encouraging Western\u2019s Development Foundation to investigate and provide information on fossil fuel divestment.<\/p>\n
In an (18-4-0) vote, the senate passed a resolution Tuesday calling for the collaboration of the foundation, environmental club, Associated Students of
\nÀÖ²¥ÊÓƵ, and the administration.<\/p>\n
Divesting refers to getting rid of stocks, bonds or investment funds that are part of the fossil fuel industry.<\/p>\n
The foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that financially assists the college through investment returns and gifts from donors. Last school year, the foundation\u2019s total revenue was $4,302,690 according to their audit report.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the environmental club, comprised of about 15 to 20 members launched a divestment campaign, collecting signatures in favor of divestment, representing more than 10 percent of the student body. They also protested outside at a Dec. 6 foundation meeting after being denied a spot on the agenda.<\/p>\n
Foundation meetings are closed for confidentiality, so groups or individuals must be invited to speak.<\/p>\n
Karl Amspacher, environmental club member, recently submitted a resolution to ASWOU, calling for the foundation to divest over the next five years or explain their reasoning if they chose not to.<\/p>\n
In a 0-5-0 vote Jan. 28, the ASWOU senate did not approve the resolution. At the same meeting, Amspacher asked the Senate to withdraw the resolution because, \u201cIt felt like it wasn\u2019t going to pass, and it\u2019d be better to have something pass then have it voted down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Since Senator Braden Shribbs had written the legislation and is, therefore, the only one who can withdraw it, the vote took place because Shribbs was absent from the meeting.<\/p>\n
Corbin Garner, ASWOU president, said the resolution was not approved because \u201cthe students [senators] conversed with were not well informed, and we felt that divestment at this point was not the right option.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amspacher was disappointed in the decision to move forward with the vote. \u201cThey could have tabled it indefinitely,\u201d Amspacher said. \u201cInstead they chose to vote on it, and they voted unanimously.\u201d He added there is clear student support in favor of divestment and ASWOU is \u201cdisregarding their mission\u201d as a voice for students. \u201cWhatever their motives are, it\u2019s not in support of students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
ASWOU has not taken a stance on divestment, Garner said, because, \u201cWe don\u2019t feel it\u2019s our place to take a side.\u201d The environmental club plans to introduce legislation to ASWOU modeled after the faculty senate legislation that was passed.<\/p>\n
Dr. Emily Plec, co-adviser of the environmental club, has taken over for Mark VanSteeter, who is on sabbatical. Plec said the club is shifting their strategy to a \u201clonger approach focused on multiple goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
By working to increase campus awareness and educate on divestment, they will \u201cpull back from the force with which they had approached foundation partners in finding out more information,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been this perception on campus that the foundation has avoided any conversation and that\u2019s not true,\u201d Tommy Love, executive director in the Office of University Advancement and Western Development Foundation said in a Tuesday interview.<\/p>\n
While the foundation does not disclose where they invest, Love did contact the foundation fund managers, Ferguson Wellman Capital Management in Portland, requesting information on the foundation\u2019s investments in energy.<\/p>\n
He was provided with a graphic demonstrating 5 percent of the foundation\u2019s endowments are in energy. Of that 5 percent, not all is necessarily in fossil fuels, Love said.<\/p>\n
Fund managers who weighed in also disagree with divestment, Love said. \u201cThey don\u2019t think it will have any impact.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re not giving these companies an influx of cash; we\u2019re buying an ownership stake,\u201d Love said. \u201cThat\u2019s essentially what stock is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love is not alone in this regard. \u201cI don\u2019t think divestment deals with it in the slightest,\u201d President Mark Weiss said in a phone interview Wednesday.<\/p>\n
While Weiss acknowledges climate change is a serious issue, he said, \u201cThere\u2019s no incentive to not burn fossil fuels. It doesn\u2019t do anything to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely agree with Mark when he says that the WOU foundation divesting will not impact the industry in any quantifiable way,\u201d Plec said in an email Wednesday.<\/p>\n
For Amspacher, divestment is about doing the ethical thing. \u201cWestern\u2019s foundation by itself is not going to have a big impact,\u201d Amspacher said. \u201cWhile it\u2019s just symbolic, if other schools follow what we do, then it loses its purely symbolic action and it becomes something with a tangible impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though both sides may be in agreement that divesting will have little-to no impact on fossil fuel companies, the question has been raised whether or not
\nit could hurt student scholarship money brought in by the foundation.<\/p>\n
With the first American college, Hampshire College, Mass. having divested in 2011 according to gofossilfree.org, quantitative data of divestment\u2019s impact is hard to come by. This leaves Love unsure of the consequences when it comes to student scholarship money.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say that by having our school divest, our financial returns won\u2019t be hurt is untrue and unpredictable,\u201d Love said in a presentation to ASWOU Jan. 14 according to senate minutes.<\/p>\n
In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the foundation awarded $663,669 in scholarship support.<\/p>\n
Love said the risk of losing financial returns and hurting scholarships for students is prevalent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the moral obligation to provide as many scholarships as we can,\u201d he said. \u201cAt this time the foundation is not looking to divest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome universities have received new donations specifically because they divested, and it is possible that some donors do not support divestment,\u201d said a Jan. 22 memo from Plec and VanSteeter addressed to faulty senate.<\/p>\n
However, \u201cSome of our most significant contributions for the benefit of students and our campus have come from individuals in the business chain of big oil,\u201d
\nWeiss said in a Wednesday email.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up phone interview, Weiss said, \u201cJust in the past two years, we\u2019ve gotten approximately $3 million from donors that have ties to energy.\u201d Some significant donors have ties to road construction companies or major trucking
\ncompanies, he added.<\/p>\n
Weiss said he wants to see the conversation shift toward solving global warming and what can be done on campus.<\/p>\n
Love said just because the foundation doesn\u2019t support divestment doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not interested in a discussion on climate change.<\/p>\n
Plec said the environmental club will focus the rest of this term on educating the campus. Beginning this term, they will also work to give the foundation incentive to divest. This will be done through divestment initiative donation
\nrequest forms given out to organizations, institutions, donors and individuals.<\/p>\n
Money raised from pledges would work to offset any possible short-term negative financial divestment consequences. The form can be found on the environmental
\nclub\u2019s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether or not we succeed with divestment, we\u2019re going to measure our success by how informed and thoughtful people are about the issue,\u201d Plec said. \u201cI think when you make real social changes, there\u2019s a lot of leg work involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a way to make divestment profitable for Western is the environmental club\u2019s new goal. Plec said it\u2019s time to \u201cput our money where our ethics and values are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Environmental club takes new approach to campaign<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}