Student Stories
Investing with a conscience
by Gabrielle Blitz ’09
April 1, 2009
It was in Caroline Peri ’10’s first-year seminar, War Crimes, Tribunals and Truth Commissions, that she and a few other classmates asked the question, “What kinds of companies should the college be invested in?” The Fairfield, Conn., native had cultivated an interest in human rights in high school. Through Assistant Professor of History Jeremy Ball’s class she grew to embrace a more activist stance and began to wonder about the ethical choices underpinning the funds that make up Dickinson’s endowment.
Ball, Peri and other students brought the idea of divestment—rejecting investments that support practices that, for instance, might harm the environment or add to the coffers of oppressive regimes—to Vice President and Treasurer Annette Smith Parker ’73. Their inquiry led Parker to approach President William G. Durden ’71 about forming a study group to explore shareholder involvement and endowment transparency.
“Shareholder engagement is important because it allows us to align the global lessons we teach in the classroom with our real-life policies,” Peri says. “We are teaching our students to be engaged citizens and leaders and to take an active role in making sure we hold our investment companies responsible.”
The students realized that their concerns were taken seriously when Durden announced at the fall 2007 Convocation that he was appointing a committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni to explore Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) practices.
SRI can include an array of strategies, from divestment to proxy voting to screening stock options. As Durden explained in his Convocation speech, “a delicate balance must be struck between sustainability and socially sensitive investment and the demand upon nonprofit educational institutions to produce robust returns on endowment investment for the purpose of completing their own worthy and socially just missions.”
The students originally wanted to propose a plan to “screen companies that didn’t reflect our values,” says Ball. This approach has been embraced by institutions such as Amherst, Smith and Harvard.
Parker’s response is that “Dickinson isn’t other schools. We have the ability to think for ourselves.” She contends that Dickinson will have a greater impact on a company’s investment choices if the college urges shareholders to make ethical choices rather than divesting outright.
Besides Peri, Ball and Parker, the SRI committee includes six other students, international business & management (IB&M) professors Michael Fratantuono and Helen Takacs; Jonathan Williams ’87, an investment director at PNC Financial Services Group; Associate Treasurer David Walker; and Neil Leary, director of the Center for Environmental & Sustainability Education. Members meet twice a month to discuss topics related to the endowment and to plan events, such as the Common Hour information session on SRI they hosted in September for the campus community. “Everyone agrees that education is a good first step,” says Ball.
After months of discussion the committee decided the college should pursue a triple-bottom-line model of investment, which aims to maximize economic, environmental and social gains to construct a sustainable financial portfolio.
Peri and Matthew Schey ’09, an IB&M major who is the Student Senate treasurer, laid the groundwork last summer for a higher SRI profile on campus. As full-time interns for Parker, they teamed up to develop a Web site dedicated to financial operations and featuring an SRI section. Topics covered include information on Dickinson’s endowment, SRI practices and campus events related to college investments.
By choosing Peri and Schey as co-Web tacticians, Parker was able to unite two usually opposing investment philosophies, with Peri representing socially conscious practices and Schey attuned to maximum financial returns on investment.
Peri, an English major and managing editor of the alternative campus newspaper, The Square, says, “SRI gave me the chance to be an active participant instead of just complaining about the issues.”
After graduation she envisions doing humanitarian, nonprofit work and feels that involvement in the SRI group has taught her enough about responsible investment practices that she could work in the field.
One thing she has learned through her committee work is that Dickinsonians can act as engaged shareholders in some of the sustainable institutions in which the college’s endowment funds are invested, such as the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, which screens out companies involved in alcohol and gambling. “SRI takes a look at the issues and can then advise the board [of trustees investment committee] on those matters,” she says.
Schey, a New Jersey native who would like to find work in the financial sector, also has learned a lot through his work with the SRI committee. “Our college financial policy will please the hard-nosed financial types and the most active of activists,” he says.
Adds Peri, “It’s all about balancing the activism with the need for financial stability. Both go toward supporting and furthering our mission as a school.”
For more information on Dickinson’s investments, financial operations and SRI practices, go to www.dickinson.edu/finops/investments.