Bowdoin College students are holding a sitin to protest the school’s investment in companies involved with fossil fuels. Between 20 and 30 members of Bowdoin Climate Action began the demonstration Wednesday morning outside the office of the college’s president, Barry Mills.
The students are calling for Mills and college trustees to pursue fossil fuel divestment and to engage in a dialogue with BCA over the issue.
Demonstrators were quiet Wednesday morning. Wearing small orange cloth squares pinned to their clothing, students sat in chairs and on the floor in the administrative section of Hawthorne Longfellow Library, taking photos, or working on laptops.
Bowdoin College senior Matthew Miles Goodrich said the sit-in would continue “until we make our point.”
“We’re going to stay as long as we can,” Goodrich later added.
Goodrich said many BCA members will miss classes as a result of the demonstration, but that faculty has been supportive of their cause.
The college was recognized with the Institutional Investor’s Endowment of the Year award in June 2014, after having passed $1 billion the year before.
Nearly half of the college’s endowment is earmarked for student financial aid.
In October 2014, BCA met with the college’s board of trustees to state their case for divestment after having collected around 1,000 signatures over the course of two years for their cause. Around the same time, about 70 faculty members signed a letter supporting a gradual divestment.
Since then, Mills has acted as the conduit between BCA and trustees.
“There’s been no engagement with anyone. We emailed our president, and he kind of gave a terse response back,” said Goodrich.
BCA emailed Mills on Wednesday, requesting that a trustee be made liaison to the group and outlining how trustees should begin the divestment process. “We call on the trustees to issue a formal public statement that they intend to pursue divestment in collaboration with the Bowdoin community,” wrote BCA member Julianna Lewis.
Mills’s response, provided to The Times Record and other media outlets as part of BCA’s email, was as follows:
“Dear Julianna,
“Thank you for your message.
“Regards.
“Barry”
“Barry appointing himself the liaison is really indicative of the college’s inability and unwillingness to engage in a productive conversation around divestment. He’s leaving in three months, and this is a long-term process that the college needs to take seriously,” said Bowdoin College junior and BCA member Allyson Gross.
Mills will be stepping down from his position this summer. His successor, Clayton Rose, will take over July 1.
Mills is away from campus on college business, said Bowdoin spokesman Doug Cook, adding “I’m not sure when he’s due back.”
“The students and President Mills met many times,” said Cook. “I think both sides made their positions very clear, and nothing on the college’s end has changed.”
Ultimately, it’s not up to the student body as to which companies the trustees invest in, but Goodrich said trustees have a duty to divest.
“They’re under the obligation of the mission of the college,” said Goodrich, which includes a willingness to serve the common good. “And right now our endowment is invested in companies that are absolutely antithetical to the common good. Investments in the fossil fuel industry threatens the future of all the students in this room.”
The office area closes for the day at 5 p.m., but Cook said the students would not be asked to leave.
“They’re well within their right, and we recognized their right to demonstrate,” said Cook.
Goodrich said he is hopeful that the protest will be effective, noting that Syracuse University on Tuesday announced its divestment from fossil fuel companies after students there occupied their administrators’ building for more than two weeks.
Mills is a Syracuse alumnus.
jswinconeck@timesrecord.com
Signatures of support
IN OCTOBER 2014, Bowdoin Climate Action met with the college’s board of trustees to state their case for divestment after having collected around 1,000 signatures over the course of two years for their cause. Around the same time, about 70 faculty members signed a letter supporting a gradual divestment.
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