Fossil Free WSU Minutes from Meeting on November 29, 2022
Present: Stevie Smith, Danielle Weinberger, Simon Smith, Ryan Culp, Abby Owens, Bill Engels
1. Outcome of Public Comments on November 18th
Ryan’s and Danielle’s comments went well. Danielle even received a request after her comment from the Regent Vice-Chair Lisa Schauer for a copy of the results of the FFWSU student survey in November of 2021. (Update: Danielle sent the document to her on November 30th.)
2. Mason’s Meeting with President Schulz on November 10th, Further Updates
President Schulz sent the follow-up letter to Mason, as promised, on November 16th. Some highlights from the letter:
- Kent Keller, WSU Professor in the School of the Environment, and Jason Sampson, Director of Environmental Health and Safety and the ESA faculty advisor, will co-chair the Environmental Sustainability Task Force to map out a sustainability plan for WSU.
- President Schulz commented that addressing “climate change will be key to the success of this plan.”
- The Task Force will incorporate a group of students in early 2023 and involve student organizations from all campuses and disciples related to sustainability.
- He indicated that “We have examined our current WSU Foundation investments and presently have no direct investments in fossil fuel companies. However, we do invest in several financial instruments like mutual funds that do have some percentage of their investments in oil and gas companies.” He also states that the student-managed Cougar Investment Fund has about 5-6% of its slightly under $4 M total invested “in energy-related industries.”
- He points out that “As a land-grant university, it is the mission of WSU to identify and seek solutions to a multitude of really challenging problems—including those surrounding climate change and sustainability.” He mentions as an “excellent example” of this the current WSU project working with research partners—“including those in the oil and gas industry”—to develop green biofuels for aviation.
Mason confirmed that one member of ESA would be on the Sustainability Task Force. (Update: Stevie Fawcett will be the ESA member on it.)
The group discussed Stevie’s reaching out to the students managing the Cougar Fund and Bill’s contacting the students’ faculty advisor, Professor Mario Reyes (as of 2021), on the topic of fossil fuel divestment. We will discuss this further in the first meeting of the spring semester.
Mason’s notes from the November 10th meeting include the information that President Schulz is apparently in contact with other universities that have divested and have carried out sustainable actions to see what WSU can do that is affordable.
3. Research on Peer Institutions
Ryan reported still being unable to get information from peer universities about the financial impacts they experienced after divesting from fossil fuels. It was pointed out that our representative on the Task Force would probably be permitted to work with other institutions, so we might pursue this avenue of inquiry instead.
4. Student Petition Drive
Stevie and Mason have applied for permission to post the announcement and QR code for the petition on digital signage around campus. Mason will post them tonight at the CUB, Spark, CUE, and Chinook. He will inquire about posting at other locations on campus such as cafeterias.
Ryan will arrange to have paper flyers posted in the dorms again in early January.
5. Divestment Resolution
Stevie had not heard back from several ASWSU Committees about scheduling a presentation on divestment to be given by Stevie, Mason, and, possibly, Danielle. Apparently, the committees aren’t meeting due to the approaching end of the semester. He will send a follow-up email to them again just prior to the start of next semester.
It was decided that we would have two versions of the petition for the student petition drive when giving a presentation to the committees. One would be for individual members to sign (the present petition) and one for the committee chair, so that the committee itself is endorsing the petition.
Bill has contacted Professor Desiree Hellegers, who expressed an interest in helping draft the FFWSU divestment resolution. (Update: Bill met with her and Rachel Cristaudo on Zoom on December 8th to arrange co-drafting the resolution and collaboration on the divestment campaign.)
6. Miscellaneous Spring Semester Items
Stevie will reserve the same room for our meetings beginning on Tuesday, January 17th.
Abby and, if his schedule allows, Stevie will make a public comment at the January 27th Board of Regents meeting.
Next meeting: Tuesday, January 17th, 6 pm, in CUB 206
Fossil Free WSU 