By Gretchen Pilar Collazo

Submitted Spring 2005

The story began my freshman year, when I joined the environmental group. Our organization had begun an investigation of Columbia’s “ecological footprint,” and this included forming a committee to research how Columbia’s investments affected the environment.

When our group initiated a major campaign to make Columbia a responsible investor, we involved the entire community - students, faculty, alumnae, the administration, and anyone else who would listen. Through awareness campaigns and one-on-ones, our group grew from four to more than twenty members, and we formed a separate group to focus solely on this issue, Students for Socially Responsible Investing. A musician on campus even wrote a song for us. We linked our campaign to other campaigns, meeting with other campus groups to discuss how responsible investment could be applied to different social justice goals. We also held teach-ins to spread the word. We began to make progress. The administration created a working group, in which we were represented, to examine the issue. Our group submitted a draft proposal which was sent to the trustees. In the winter of 1999, the Columbia Trustees adopted a policy, releasing the school’s full investment portfolio and forming the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment, charged with reviewing and making recommendations regarding the ethical and social consequences of the University’s investments.

The next year, we initiated a similar campaign at Barnard College. Barnard is a Seven Sisters school that is affiliated with Columbia University, but maintains an entirely separate endowment. We created Barnard Students for Socially Responsible Investing and began having weekly meetings with the Vice President of Finance and Administration to finalize a proposal to submit to the trustees. Fortunately, our President supported the idea and she proved to be a great help in bringing the proposal to our trustees.

In the spring of 2002, we presented our proposal to the Trustee’s Investment Committee. We argued that as an educational institution, it was our responsibility to vote on proxies after rigorous discussion, rather than surrendering our vote to management. Furthermore, we noted that our school had already committed to certain policies, such as equal opportunity hiring. It would be hypocritical to advance certain social principles within the school, but then defeat them with our investment policy. The Investment Committee discussed our proposal and then reported back to the entire body of trustees. In 2002, the Barnard Trustees voted to create a Committee on SRI as well!

We continued our work, and broadened it to be a general social justice group with a particular focus on responsible investment. My experience with responsible investment was incredible. Through participation in the campaign, I came to understand that the codes of shareholder rights and responsibilities hold within themselves the ability to fundamentally shift the guidelines by which society measures worth. Advocating for responsible investment provides schools with an opportunity to influence a wide range of social justice issues, and can lead to long-term positive social changes, most importantly the ability to encourage companies to measure their well-being by considering both their social and fiscal impact on the public.

Gretchen, one of the original founders of REC, practices law in New York City.