Thompson Rivers University currently has no plan for divestment from Israeli companies or others who fall afoul of pro-Palestinian activists.
TRU has opened the books on their investment holdings after coming to an agreement with a group calling themselves ‘The People’s University of Gaza at TRU’ back in the spring, when campus sit-ins and protests were sweeping the continent.
Now Matt Milovick, the University’s Vice President of Finance and Administration, says it’s up to the activists to look through the information – and make a list or some kind of proposal.
“Our first intention is to pass any divestment proposal we get from this group to our trusted advisors and start having some of those discussions around what some of the presumed issues are,” Milovick said on NL Newsday. “So we’re not committing to anything at this point.”
“You know in the past where we’ve dealt with things like divestment requests with respect to sustainability issues our response has been to join the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment to make sure that our fund managers are using the rights screens to screen out those most egregious offenders.”
Milovick also says divestment from pooled investment funds is difficult and may not be in the fiduciary interest of the University or wider student body.
“With most of our money in exchange-traded funds or pooled funds its really difficult to divest from those because pooled funds, as the name suggests, they hold a number of companies,” he said.
“A pooled fund could have up to 100 [different investments], and there could be one company on their hit list that’s just a small percentage of the entire fund and presumably the assumptions is we’d divest from the entirety of the pooled fund.”
It’s unclear just how many students The People’s University of Gaza at TRU actually represents on campus.
But Milovick said that TRU will update its investment web page annually so people who are interested can track and follow the university’s investments over time.
“We are committed to acting responsibly and supporting investments that promote environmental, social, and governance values that align with the expectations of our Board of Governors, as well as those of all Canadians,” Milovick said.
“We expect our investments to support the making of a better world. It’s at the core of TRU’s mission.”
