Since its establishment in the late 1970s in response to student oppostion to investing in apartheid South Africa, the Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility has been working to match Georgetown University’s investment decisions to its Jesuit ideals. Over a year ago, on Feb. 17, 2012, the University announced an expansion of the CISR, but the committee has yet to find a systematic way to engage students actively and consistently over time.
“Under this expansion, the committee will now consider and evaluate written proposals on socially responsible investment issues from members of the University community,” wrote Michael Barry, Georgetown’s Chief Investment Officer, in a press release at the time of the announced expansion.
However, a year later, the CISR is still not providing community members with a formal procedure to present proposals regarding the University’s investment practices. Until recently, the committee didn’t even have an email address interested community members could use to contact the board.
“Last semester, the CISR talked about opening a public forum for students to come to and present their proposals. They said that they would have one last semester, and they never did,” said Sydney Browning (COL ’15), member of the recently formed group Georgetown University Fossil Free.
GU Fossil Free started a campaign at the beginning of this year to demand that the University divest from fossil-fuel companies. On Jan. 23, the group delivered a letter with their demands to President John DeGioia’s office.
Even though members of the CISR Committee are aware of the group’s campaign, formal deliberation on the proposal still needs to be held.“Because the proposal process hasn’t been publicly rolled out, we haven’t yet had the opportunity to review formal proposals,” said Daniel Solomon (SFS ‘13), one of the two student representatives to the CISR. “The committee is aware of GU Fossil Free coalition’s proposal and has been in communication with the president’s office about the proposal, but there hasn’t been formal deliberation about it.”
Browning and fellow members of GU Fossil Free see this as an obstacle for their campaign.
“There’s no way for us to give them our proposal and to have them officially discuss it unless they host a public forum to which we would have to come and present it,” Browning said.
Up to this point, the CISR has not made public a formal format for submitting proposals. Nonetheless, according to CISR member Alex Douglas, the committee is in the process of finalizing its operating procedures.
“Academic year 2012-2013 is the first year that the CISR is operating under this expanded mandate,” Douglas wrote in an email to the Voice. “This spring, the committee plans to launch a website detailing its function, membership, and procedures.”
In addition, there has been some talk focused on the formal procedure community members should follow if interested in submitting a proposal for the committee’s consideration.
“The process would look something along the lines of having a set of formal criteria that are clear and transparent,” Solomon said. “Students or actively interested individuals would submit the proposal, the committee would review it, send back questions, ask for clarifications, and potentially invite the individual to come present to the committee.”
The concern of many students and community members is that the potential bureaucracy of this process will prevent individuals from presenting divestment proposals.
“A formal way to present proposals would be good, but it has to be one way that is not a bureaucracy,” Browning said. “It would be good for the CISR to have forums on a regular basis, say every two weeks, so that if a student or group of students come up with an idea, they don’t have to wait until the next semester to present it.”
James Feinerman, who has been sitting on the CISR for 13 years, says members of the committee are working on making the process to present proposals as simple as possible, which is one of the reasons it is taking so long to reach an agreement.
“We have no desire to increase or even create a bureaucratic obstacle,” Feinerman said. “The idea is just the opposite, which is to design something relatively simple, and make it possible for proposals to be presented before this year’s proxy season.”
The CISR’s main role is to advise the University on its investment decisions and does not have veto power. However, providing community members with a formal and simple way to present proposals is a way to engage more people in the conversation.
“This is a valuable opportunity for Georgetown as an institution to make students more [a part] of that process,” Soloman said, “and to try to elevate student advocates to the level of the equals on the playing field of the conversation about what Georgetown perceives as its responsibility as a university and as a Jesuit institution about corporate responsibility issues.”
