Last month, Oberlin’s environmental sustainability efforts received praise and criticism from the non-profit Sustainable Endowments Institute, which assessed the College with a grade of C+ in its first College Sustainability Report Card. The report gave a low grade on poor community engagement and limited transparency in College investments and proxy votes, shareholder resolutions that often relate to social or environmental issues.

The report praised the College for its commitment to on-campus sustainability initiatives but indicated that the College may not be applying similarly sustainable practices to how it invests its $695 million endowment. In an interview with the Review, Sustainable Endowments Institute Executive Director Mark Orlowski said, “While Oberlin is clearly doing excellent, nationally recognized work in terms of on-campus sustainability initiatives, this is another area where it also could be a leader.”

Students and staff on campus share the concerns about Oberlin’s financial transparency raised by the Institute. They worry that Oberlin’s limited financial accountability may lead to environmentally and socially unsound investments.

Environmental Studies Professor John Petersen said that the lack of disclosure is distressing, but he said that he had no plans to protest publicly, as the complexity of Oberlin’s investments limits his ability to speak.

“I think we should certainly have an ethical and responsible investment strategy, but I don’t want to tell the trustees how to invest our money, since they have the expertise,” Petersen said. “They are less likely to listen to me on this issue.”

Petersen suggested that students might be more able to successfully change the College’s financial policies.

Student senator and College senior Erin Morey, who has been actively involved with recent environmental initiatives on campus, said, “I think it is safe to say that Oberlin has very little administrative transparency, and that more transparency would be a positive thing, and not just in terms of on campus sustainability.”

Senate is reportedly working with College officials to create an investment advisory committee that was authorized by the Board of Trustees last summer.  The committee would be composed of students and staff, and would help the Board align investment decisions with the College’s stated commitment to environmental and social sustainability. However, the committee has not met, and a student senator familiar with the committee could not be contacted for this article.

In the meantime, Marcia Miller, Oberlin’s chief investment officer, defended the College’s level of disclosure, citing strategic principles and low community interest as reasons for Oberlin’s limited disclosure policies. According to Miller, the College does not disclose the companies in which it invests because much of Oberlin’s endowment is invested through money managers who do not report Oberlin’s portfolio. Miller said that this makes it impossible to give an accounting of the College’s investments.

“The transparency isn’t even available [to the College],” said Miller. 

The report also singled out Oberlin’s nondisclosure of proxy votes. Proxy votes are a means by which an investor can influence activities of an organization in which it invests by voting on resolutions proposed by other investors; one such vote might be a proposal that Coca-Cola create a committee investigating alleged human rights abuses in South America.

Economics Professor David Cleeton, one of two non-voting faculty representatives on the Board of Trustees’ investment committee, responded to the criticism about proxy votes by observing that only two private institutions received an ‘A’ grade from the Institute in the category dealing with proxy votes. Cleeton concluded that disclosure of these votes would be “quite at odds with tested practice.”

While acknowledging the rareness of this type of disclosure, Orlowski said, “Ten years ago, sustainability wasn’t the norm, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.” 

Orlowski also commented that some institutions reviewed in his organization’s report – such as Dartmouth, Purdue and Williams – do disclose proxy voting records and at least some of their endowment’s holdings.

The report, which was released last month, rated the sustainability policies of 100 colleges and universities. Twenty-six institutions received higher grades than Oberlin, with Harvard, Dartmouth and Williams receiving the highest grade issued by the Institute: A-.