Moving to the Left | NYU protests hold meaning for Vassar’s shared governance

In a move that some called shocking, a group of around 40 students from activist group Take Back NYU! forcibly occupied NYU's Kimmel Center last Wednesday, Feb. 18, barricading themselves in the cafeteria with tables and chairs and chanting a list of demands for the administration, most of which revolved around the University's financial strategy. The protest continued for three days, until some of the students were escorted out by security guards, suspended and kicked out of their University housing until after their judicial hearings, which began on Monday.

Of course, this event was only shocking in the same sense that all civil disobedience, both on college campuses and off, has become shocking in recent years. Even at Vassar, students are consistently encouraged to use "existing channels" to express their opinions and advocate for change. But as we have seen this year, those existing channels may not be serving much more than a symbolic purpose at this point. The failure of the administration to effectively integrate student voices in its decisions in the Bookstore move and the adjunct faculty cuts begs the questions: How much power do students actually hold in this "shared governance," and what are students to do when the existing channels, including the VSA, fail to adequately address student concerns?

In that light, occupying a building seems like an extremely viable option, and one that Vassar groups should always consider as within their activist toolbox. However, there is certainly something to be said for trying the existing channels first, and before I make the jump to civil disobedience, I think there are definitive ways that those channels could be greatly improved.

Many of Take Back NYU!'s demands are along these lines, and there is a lot that Vassar might learn from the group. Their demands revolve around the University's investment policy, which is a subject that should be on everyone's lips right now, as the financial crisis may compel institutions to invest in a socially irresponsible way in order to maximize profits. One of their primary demands is for transparency, both in operational budget allocations and in endowment investments. The group calls for an oversight board of students who would have full veto power on the University's investments, called the Socially Responsible Finance Committee. Vassar currently has a version of this committee called the College Investment Responsibility Committee (CIRC), though they hold no direct power over investment strategy. There is also the Trustee Investment Responsibility Committee (TIRC), which is comprised solely of Board members.

In the past, CIRC and TIRC have been largely responsible for the College's divestment from South Africa and from the Sudan. But because Vassar does not, as a policy, release its investment information to the public, it is nearly impossible for interested students to review the companies that the College is invested in. In addition, CIRC only works with direct investments, that is, those individual stocks that the College owns shares of. A presumably large portion of Vassar's investments are not direct, however, and instead are in funds called commingled funds, which include hedge funds. These funds are managed by outside agencies, and consist of investments in many different companies at once. Often, the College does not even know which companies are included in these funds, because they are constantly changing at the discretion of the fund managers, making it virtually impossible to assert any control over these investments.

To be fair, almost all colleges and universities dabble in commingled funds, because these funds are extremely lucrative. A proposal to divest from all commingled funds so that the College might more closely monitor the companies it invests in would surely be met with derision. It is only because we have gotten so used to educational institutions running themselves like corporations, however, that it is nearly impossible to see outside the box, but that's another column.

The first step to ensuring that Vassar is investing responsibly (that is, not in companies profiting from war, oil companies abroad or companies that do not guarantee fair wages and treatment for their employees) is to make Vassar's direct investments available to the public in an annual or bi-annual report. The reason we do not currently do this is that we are afraid that other institutions will look at how much money we're making and how we're making it, and then copy us. But this strategy demands a close look at the principles we are abiding by as an institution—should profits always come before ideals?
The next step in increasing the power of student voices in financial decisions is to combine CIRC and TIRC. This is typical of the College, the number of committees does more to avert attention from who is actually making decisions than to provide avenues of dissent and discussion. Instead of two committees, there should only be one, consisting of two students, two faculty members, two staff members, two alumnae/i and two trustees, and the committee should have the same powers that TIRC currently does; that is, have the final say on the College's investment policies.

The third step is to allow at least one Vassar student to sit on the Board of Trustees with full voting power. The most logical choice for this position is the VSA President, who already is allowed to listen in on the Trustees' conversation, but who cannot vote. This action of giving the student body a voice in the College's most important decisions is something that should have happened many years ago.

These suggestions would serve at least as starting points to empowering Vassar students in the administration's financial decisions, and are helpful hints that we can glean from Take Back NYU! Given the current lack of student agency in the College's decision-making process, I don't think anybody should be surprised if, in coming years, Vassar has to deal with a similar problem. Another of Take Back NYU!'s demands that deserves discussion is a thorough investigation of investments in all companies that are currently profiting from the occupation of Palestine. This is something that Vassar needs to do immediately. The current method would be to bring the issue to CIRC, who would then bring it to TIRC, in a potentially long and exhaustive bureaucratic process. But that this is the case only calls for the examination to start as quickly as possible.

Of course, these policy changes and considerations should not be the work of the VSA or administrators alone. The student body as a whole needs to step up and make its demands and opinions known. And this is perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from the Take Back NYU! students: Activism is only dead if we forget about it, and all students have a right to assert their agency in the College's decisions. After all, whose college is this, anyway?

—Mike Alberti is a senior English major. This semester, he will be editorializing on Vassar's political and ideological leanings. He is Features Editor of The Miscellany News.