Dear Editor,

I read the article in the most recent publication of The Hill News titled “Endowment Dilemma” and was dumbfounded by the idiocy of this article. The author states that SLU “has taken no steps, while managing the endowment, to specifically invest in companies that uphold social responsibility or grapple with climate change.” Why should it? In the article, SLU’s treasurer states that the bottom line of the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees is “investing to get the best return for our money.” This seems like it would be common sense to me, but apparently not.

The author goes on to criticize former president Sullivan’s actions in investing the schools endowment “unethically”. He cites the former President’s Climate Commitment Statement, which read “campuses that address the climate challenge by reducing global warming emissions and by integrating sustainability into their curriculum will better serve their students and meet their social mandate to help create a thriving ethical and civil society.” In the author’s eyes, the funding and building of the Sullivan Student Center, Newell Field House, and Johnson Hall, are all tainted by the dirty money used to fund them. The fact that Johnson Hall is LEED gold-certified must mean nothing to the author. To him, it would be much better to still be running the science departments out of Bewkes than to be running them in the new eco-friendly Johnson Hall since it was built with such tainted money. I myself prefer former President Sullivan’s stance on better serving students. I came to St. Lawrence because of all the opportunities it has to offer, and have no issue putting my tuition towards whatever the experts in charge of the endowment may want to invest in as long as it benefits the SLU community. If the author feels so adamantly that we are poorly and unethically investing the school’s endowment, then maybe he should take his money elsewhere, somewhere where the goal of investing the endowment is to feel good, not to get returns sufficient enough to run a top-notch university.

The author of this article obviously just wants to have the warm and fuzzy feeling of doing something “good.” Sure, I wouldn’t mind if the school invested in eco-friendly companies, as long as it brought economic returns for the school with it. The school can’t afford to simply invest in feel-good companies, especially not in these economic times. If we did invest in eco-friendly companies instead of ones that maximize profit, the school wouldn’t be able to afford half the things it does now, but hey, at least we’d be doing the “right” thing, right?

The author cites some of the “ethically offensive” companies that SLU invests in as Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Boeing, and DuPont; Numbers 2, 3, 27, and 81 on the Fortune 500 list, respectively. Had the author done his research, he would discover that these companies aren’t so “ethically offensive.” Exxon-Mobil, for example has the Green Team, a summer youth employment program in which students are paid to participate in cleanup, environmental and beautification projects, as well as construction projects in public parks and economically depressed neighborhoods throughout the United States according to their website. According to the Chevron website, they have programs to develop clean energy such as solar and biomass energy. And according to environmentalleader.com, in Boeing’s 2008 Environment Report, Boeing states that, through the integration of environmental performance improvements and technology advancements, the CO2 emissions of its airplanes dropped by about 70 percent over the last 40 years, and the hazardous waste of its manufacturing operations dropped 30 percent between 2002 and 2007. Who would invest in such morally corrupt companies?

I would also like to point out that SLU has recently been named a Campus Sustainability Leader by the Sustainable Endowments Institute in its 2010 College Sustainability Report Card. Wow, I would never have thought this possible since we invest in such morally and environmentally corrupt companies.

The author ends the article by attempting to motivate students to join in a large coordinated effort to urge the school to change its investment strategy to be eco-friendly. I would simply ask students this: would you rather feel good about the school’s investment strategy or continue to take advantage of the opportunities offered to you by the high caliber university you currently attend? I think the answer is obvious.

-Ned Luke ‘12