At a special meeting of College of the Atlantic’s Board of Trustees in March, the trustees accepted a student proposal to divest the college from all fossil fuel-related investments. The divestment of all stocks goes into effect immediately.
“The elation on campus is palpable,” says COA President Darron Collins, PhD. “Without a doubt, our actions send a strong message—one we are following with a student-driven energy framework based on empowering our students to go out and make a difference in their communities and throughout this world.”
COA second-year student Lucas Burdick led the successful student campaign to divest, “This is an important step for COA,” he said, after the March 11 meeting. “Divesting from fossil fuels not only affirms the college’s founding environmental principles, it launches our more recent commitment to actively educate and empower young people to address the climate crisis.”
With this move, COA joins the “Go Fossil Free” movement organized by 350.org, and no longer holds stock in the fossil-fuel-related companies appearing on its list of 200 such companies. The board resolution also charges the college’s investment committee to instruct its investment managers “to refrain from any further investments in companies on that list.”
The divestment campaign began just before the college’s January board meeting. It took one week for the college to accept a provisional agreement to divest, but the resolution needed a vote by the board.
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