In Fall 2023, Associated Students of Whitman College (ASWC) divested from two major investment funds, marking a shift in their financial strategy. On Oct. 29, 2024, the ASWC Finance Committee held a town hall to discuss options for the divested funds. Committee Members noted that being divested for just a few months last year cost them $50,000 in potential growth, with that loss continuing to grow.
In 2020, ASWC invested approximately $600,000 from surplus student fees into the Trillium Environmental/Social/Governance Global Equity Fund PORIX and the TIAA-CREF Core Impact Bond Fund. Upon the investment, each subsequent year, the ASWC Finance Committee would withdraw 3% of the returns from those investments and allocate it into their budget.
In the Fall of 2023, at the time of divestment, the initial $600,000 had increased to about $836,919 total. The Complete ASWC Divestment Act stated that ASWC had lost $27,505.46 since the initial investment in the TIAA-CREF Core Impact Bond Fund. It further added that the initial intent of the investment was to provide ASWC with dividends that could eventually become a piece of the operating budget. However, the Trillium ESG Global Equity Fund did not do well enough to provide those dividends.
Chair of the ASWC Finance Committee Maximilian Walthers cited ethical and social considerations as driving factors for the divestment.
“The concerns, ethically, were surrounding big companies that were invested in Israel, and that was the factor that certain members last year in the fall wanted to divest from. And they kind of introduced an act to fully divest from the fund [through] a closed ballot, a Senate ballot, and it passed by one vote,” Walthers said.
According to Devon Meeker, a member of the ASWC finance committee, he believes that in the short term, the divestment will not endanger the senate. However, Meeker expressed his concern about the long-term impact, especially as student enrollment is projected to go down across the country.
“I expect that having invested funds and having a kind of safety net will be more and more important going into the future. It is just a way to guarantee financial stability separate from student enrollment that would be massively helpful in the coming years,” Meeker said.
Eneida Likaj, Vice Chair of the ASWC Finance Committee, spoke to The Wire about the divestment.
“The money that we lost from having divested will become a problem if we immediately spend all the money that we took away from it on projects without having a proper plan or making an actual long-term plan,” Likaj said.
Likaj hinted that the divestment decision was rushed, noting that there was no clear plan for how the funds would be used afterward. She emphasized the need to sit down and have a plan for what they are going to do with these funds now.
“It’s going to keep being a problem for the next chair, the next committee, and the rest of the student body if a long-term solution is not found,” Likaj said.
According to Walthers, the finance committee hasn’t made any final decisions yet. So far, the town hall has been their first major opportunity for hearing opinions and voices. The committee has set up a Google form that invites people to share their plans for what could be done with money. At the time of this interview, the committee had only received one response.
In an interview with The Wire, Valentina Garcia-Charles, Chair of the ASWC Sustainability Committee, referenced Vice President for Finance & Administration Jeff Hamrick’s proposal to provide electric vehicles for student use. This proposal was presented to the sustainability committee based on student’s requests for more accessible ways to get around town. She added that the committee has been working on the project since the spring of 2023. She believes it would be a good use of divestment money.
“It creates accessibility for students on campus. It’s their electric vehicle, so we wouldn’t have to be using fossil fuels, and the cost is pretty low to rent, and hopefully, that fee will get waived if you apply to the Travel and Student Development Fund through ASWC,” Garcia-Charles said.
