DukeOpen, a new student coalition advocating for greater endowment transparency, was redirected after petitioning to meet with the Board of Trustees at their May 10 meeting.
The coalition created a proposal in early April asking the Board of Trustees to make periodic reports to the Duke community about how the University’s money is being invested. DukeOpen intended to present the proposal at the Board of Trustees’ meeting, but Vice Preisdent and University Secretary Richard Riddell, in consultation with President Richard Brodhead, redirected the proposal to the President’s Special Committee on Investment Responsibility, said Bobo Bose-Kolanu, a first-year graduate student in literature and DukeOpen member.
The PSC considers whether proposals regarding specific investment responsibility concerns are legitimate and, if so, refers them to the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility. The ACIR then conducts research and makes recommendations to the President, who then decides whether or not to forward recommendations to the Board of Trustees.
To ensure the Duke community has access to investment information, the DukeOpen proposal would make it mandatory for the PSC and ACIR to publicly disclose their reports of endowment holdings.
“It’s inappropriate for our proposal to go through PSC—it’s inappropriate to ask those committees to decide on their own freedom,” said junior Jacob Tobia, a member of DukeOpen. “We feel that it’s only appropriate for the President and the Board to look over it.”
Those who have business they would like bring in front of the Board may submit proposals to Riddell up to a month in advance. DukeOpen submitted its proposal April 1, more than a week before the April 10 deadline for the upcoming Board meeting, Tobia wrote in an email Sunday.
“With regard to DukeOpen, President Brodhead did consult with the executive committee of the Board of Trustees and they agreed that it should be handled through the existing process,” Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in an email Monday.
Brodhead will brief the Board at the May 10 meeting about the status of the DukeOpen proposal in PSC process, Schoenfeld added. The next Board meeting after the May gathering will take place in October.
Riddell has promised that the proposal will be heard by the whole Board before the end of the Fall semester, Tobia said.
“It’s a stalling tactic to break the momentum of what we developed,” Tobia said. “Given the volume of research that we’ve done and the quality of the results, we’re very frustrated that the administration is reacting this way… We feel our proposal is not being taken seriously.”
In DukeOpen’s meeting with Riddell last Monday, Riddell said he had only read parts of the proposal and it was evident that he was not aware of the contents of some of the documents submitted with the proposal, Tobia said.
Schoenfeld noted that the established PSC process ensures that concerns are reviewed in a thorough and fair way.
“DukeOpen is a serious, thoughtful proposal about a very complex issue and it will be given equally serious and thoughtful consideration by the university through the well-established process,” Schoenfeld wrote April 18.
Riddell and Brodhead could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Duke for Endowment Transparency, a group created in 2009 that also called for more open information regarding the University’s endowment transactions, received the same response that DukeOpen did from administrators, said junior Lucas Spangher, a DukeOpen member who has lead the group’s research efforts. Duke for Endowment Transparency was also referred to the PSC, and after the involved students left for the summer, their efforts fell apart, said Spangher, who is also a former columnist for The Chronicle.
The PSC, chaired by Provost Peter Lange, will consider DukeOpen’s proposal at their meeting May 7, Bose-Kolanu wrote in an email Saturday. DukeOpen has been consulting with Lange on its work with the proposal.
“It’s not the case that everyone who you think of as an administrator has responded in the same way—many have been positive in directing our research efforts,” Bose-Kolanu said. “At the end of the day I think those are the voices that will carry the way and we will be able to build a successful and responsible endowment at Duke.”
Lange could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
DukeOpen is continuing to meet with student group leaders, faculty and administrators to garner support. So far, people have been receptive to their message, Bose-Kolanu said.
“We’re optimistic that the people who have expressed support will continue to express support… because this is a global issue and has a bearing on all of us,” he said. “We’re not fazed.”
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