Charge from the President

To: The Skidmore Community
From: Philip A. Glotzbach, President
Date: 2 December 2013
Re: Environmental Responsibility and Divestment

As a liberal arts college that has long championed the concept of informed responsible citizenship—not just as an educational goal with regard to our students but also as a guiding principle for the College itself—we have made many decisions that have increased the environmental sustainability of our operations. Over the past few months, a number of voices from our various constituencies have requested that the College also divest itself of its equity holdings related to fossil fuels. Last May, for example, the Skidmore College Board of Trustees received a student petition calling for such an outcome. Several other schools that are similar to Skidmore have considered the possibility of taking such actions.

Our investment portfolio represents Skidmore’s single most important financial resource, one that affects everything from our annual budget (including the amount of financial aid we have available year-to-year) to the College’s bond rating. Managing the College's endowment is a central part of the Board's fiduciary responsibility. However, in the spirit of shared governance and reflecting the College's broader commitment to operate responsibly and transparently, the Board has authorized the administration to create a task force to consider the various complexities and implications relating to the call for divestment.

Accordingly, I am requesting that the Institutional Policy and Planning Committee (IPPC) endorse the formation of a Task Force on Divestment that will comprise representatives of the student body, the administration, the faculty, and the Board of Trustees. Members of this group will be chosen through a combination of calls for willingness-to-serve and appointment.

This group will do its work in two phases, and the charge to this group will be as follows:

Phase I

1. To explore the meaning of the divestment request: i.e., to interrogate analogies and disanalogies with the anti-apartheid movement, to place this anti-divestment movement in the context of the College’s actions to enhance the sustainability of our operations (e.g., geothermal heating and cooling, etc.), and so on. The purpose of this initial inquiry is to understand what this call for divestment is intended to accomplish in advancing the goals of sustainability and responsible operations.
   
   
2. To research what other colleges and universities have done in regard to this issue, paying special attention to schools that are similar to Skidmore (e.g., Middlebury, Colby, Swarthmore, Pomona) and seeking to learn what we can from the work that these institutions have completed.