Fossil Free WSU Minutes from Meeting on January 31, 2023
Present: Stevie Smith, Abby Owens, Danielle Weinberger, Simon Smith, Ryan Culp, Daniel Howell, Gil Rezin, Bill Engels
1. Public Comment at January 27th Board of Regents’ Meeting
Gil Rezin’s public comment at the meeting went very well. He was the only person at the Regents’ meeting to comment. Congratulations to Gil and to all who have commented or tried to comment at Regents’ meetings.
2. Guardian article on universities using offshore hedge funds
Bill shared with the group a 2017 Guardian article he received from Dr. Hellegers: “Top US universities use offshore funds to grow their huge endowments.” WSU was named, along with two other state schools, that put money in EnCap, a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands that is “a leading provider of venture capital to independent oil and gas companies.”
The group recognized the need to research whether WSU is still invested in EnCap. Abby agreed to research this.
3. Meeting Place and Time
Stevie will request a reservation for CUB 310 for our current meeting time on or beginning on Tuesday, February 14th. Update: The room has been reserved for the 14th and 28th.
4. Sustainability Task Force
Stevie reported that he met with Jason Sampson, a co-chair of the Task Force, who reported that there will be several divisions and that ESA will be under “Operations.” Each division will set up goals, which will include divestment from the Carbon Underground 200, for the Board of Regents to vote on. President Schulz had approved the list of divisions. The division meetings will begin at the end of February. Jason also reported that the other co-chair will be Julie Padowsky, a WSU faculty member.
Stevie suggested that FFWSU work through the Task Force to achieve our goal. However, it was pointed out that WSU may be more committed and likely to carry out a pledge to divest if the Regents vote in favor of our Divestment Resolution instead (or in addition to a divestment goal set up by the Task Force). Stevie will send Bill the information he received from Jason.
The group decided to ask Jason to present on the Task Force at an upcoming FFWSU meeting; Stevie will ask Jason.
4. Student Petition
A total of 840 persons had signed (26 more than at the time of our last meeting). Stevie confirmed that the petition was displayed on electronic signs in the same locations on campus as last fall. Ryan indicated that the paper flyers were taken on January 24th to the WSU Housing office for displaying in the dorms and that the flyers should have been displayed by today.
The group decided to plan on displaying multicolored paper flyers the next time they are posted.
Daniel suggested the idea of ESA/FFWSU hosting debates by political candidates and of endorsing candidates as a way of creating publicity about the campaign and petition.
5. Presentations to ASWSU Committees
Stevie will continue to contact the committees, who have not yet responded. Update: The International Student Council has agreed to a presentation at their executive meeting on February 13th.
6. Faculty Petition
Money for sending the email to all of the faculty with the petition was approved. Bill will look at the wording of the email with the student petition to see if it needs to be revised for the faculty email. The petition will be posted using Qualtrics.
7. Cougar Investment Fund
Bill indicated he had not yet contacted Mario Reyes regarding the Fund’s possible fossil fuel investments but would do so. As of August 2021, Dr. Reyes mentored WSU students working on the Fund.
8. Rally and March in April
The group decided to hold another rally and march as part of Earth Week at WSU in April.
Next Meeting: Tuesday, February 14th, 6 pm in CUB 310.
Fossil Free WSU 