Amherst College Responsible Endowment Coalition
Officers:
- Alissa Ayden
- Joseph Bobman
- Michael Muller
- Alexander Weckenman
AC-REC's proposal to create an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI) was recently passed by the Board of Trustees (October 2008) and the ACSRI is officially in operation as of Spring '09. The ACSRI will have student, faculty, staff, and alumni members. The ACSRI website can be found here: https://www.amherst.edu/offices/committees/acsri.
AC-REC will continue to advocate for shareholder engagement and socially responsible investment at the College. We advocate for corporate accountability and seek to educate the College community and raise awareness about the social, ethical, and environmental implications of our personal and institutional investment practices.
We encourage ALL community members to take advantage of our work on endowment transparency and stay informed by checking out the listings of all common stocks held directly by the College and the managers engaged to manage the assets of the endowment. These lists can be found on the Treasurer's website: https://www.amherst.edu/offices/treasurer/investments/investment_policy_listing and are frequently updated. An Amherst College username and password is required.
If students have particular concerns about some of the College's investments, they can contact AC-REC, which will serve as the student group liaison to the ACSRI. Students (and all Amherst College community members) are also encouraged to contact the ACSRI directly.
Please feel free to also contact us with general questions, concerns, or inquiries about getting involved.
AC-REC: rec@amherst.edu
ACSRI: acsri@amherst.edu
CURRENT EVENTS: A RECENT VICTORY AGAINST MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL?
On November 14th, AC-REC participated in the Rainforest Action Network's national day of action against the coal industry and its financiers. We protested outside the Bank of America in Amherst Center and collected well over 100 signatures urging CEO Ken Lewis to adopt a meaningful climate policy and to stop financing the coal industry and mountain top removal.
A few weeks after RAN's national days of action, Bank of America released a statement pledging to phase out funding of mountain top removal:
"Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal. While we acknowledge that surface mining is economically efficient and creates jobs, it can be conducted in a way that minimizes environmental impacts in certain geographies."
When this statement was released, we looked forward to holding Bank of America accountable to its words, and realized that even this positive step forward could not undo the damage that has already been done to communities and the environment.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, Bank of America's statement remains rather amorphous - with no timeline or plan of action in sight, the fight against mountain top removal continues...
See articles about Bank of America's move:
http://cms.ran.org/media_center/news_article/?uid=4785
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1204-coal.html
See Bank of America's full statement here:
http://environment.bankofamerica.com/articles/Energy/COAL_POLICY.pdf
See The Amherst Student's coverage of our protest here: