UW Students Form Coalition for Fossil Fuel Divestment

UW students from organizations across Wisconsin formed a coalition to convince the University of Wisconsin System to divest in fossil fuels. Since March, they have been informing UW schools and their students of this challenge in order to have transparency within the UW system.

The University of Wisconsin Divestment Coalition, or the UWDC, is a state-wide organization that demands divestment from fossil fuels to combat the climate crisis. They say that within the UW system, there is $7 billion in endowment funds. What the coalition wants is a financial strategy of removing those investments in fossil fuels and converting them into renewable energy sources.

According to Erin Thompson, press coordinator for UWDC, it’s a hard issue that has a lot of gray area.

Mark Pitsch, director of media relations at the University of Wisconsin System, said that the $7 billion figure most likely encompasses all other investments managed by various foundations of the University of Wisconsin System or its various universities.

“The foundations are legally dependent entities, and their investment policies are determined by their respective governing boards and not by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) pursuant, have an Investment Management Agreement with UW System in a Long Term Fund,” said Pitsch. “With this agreement, an Investment Policy Statement is formulated by SWIB and the Long Term Fund and is managed in accordance to that Investment Policy. The Long Term fund consists of investments in common stocks, U.S. Treasury Bonds, Private Equity Funds and Real Estate.”

However, Thompson says it’s a very convoluted thing. “You can go onto the UW Foundation Website and you can find some of their nonprofit organizations who do the handling of donations, but tax documents that they release to the public basically just give that one number,” said Thompson, “They don’t break it down to where it’s coming from or where it’s going. So that’s kind of the question that we are trying to get answered and trying to make it so it is more specific.”

UW-Milwaukee’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Katherine Nelson, said that she was surprised because to them, the UW System was known for being extremely transparent about this kind of stuff. “We should know the information of where we are investing, and I’m just speaking in the way a normal person would see things. I also think that divestment scares people because it essentially says we are building on an unsustainable format,” said Nelson.

Since being started by a group of students at UW-Stevens Point, members of the UWDC can be found at 13 University of Wisconsin campuses. Their resolution has also passed recently at UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point. People, like Nelson, are supportive of UWDC’s mission, calling it one of the most organized they’ve ever seen in the students across the system.

Fossil fuel, things such as oil and coal, are resources that we extract from the ground and are very temporary. Sustainability and renewable energies, on the other hand, use resources other than fossil fuels that help keep the earth in a healthy condition for future generations.

So what encompasses renewable sources and its importance towards alternative funding? Alison Donnelly, associate professor in the Department of Geography, teaches her students about environmental geography, specifically our impacts that we have on the earth.

“The whole idea is making people aware of their impact on the environment and then using resources in a conscious way so that future generations are also able to have them,” said Donnelly. “We need to reduce our use of fossil fuels and keep them in the ground as much as possible because as soon as they run out there’s no way of getting more for generations.

The idea of fossil fuels is a constructed idea that is not happening by chance; it is intended for financial gain, according to Nelson.

The UWDC’s main goal right now is to draw attention to university leadership and the Board of Regents in a professional way. “They are one of our main audiences that have a lot to say in the UW foundation investments,” said Thompson. “Bringing attention to the issue also for students, faculty, staff, and community members in Wisconsin is also important because we want to have everyone involved with this.”

Donnelly said we are seeing that a lot more individuals want transparency which then puts pressure on these big corporations and governments to at least think differently.

Thompson, like others in this coalition, wants people to participate as one voice. “I just hope that people know that this is an important topic when doing something about the climate crisis. I think that this divestment coalition is a really good example of a big step that we can take together in mitigating it.”

One of Nelson’s favorite sayings is, “You have the right to choose, but you’re not free of the consequences of your choice,” but for them it has become reality. They have told their peers that we are in a day of reckoning.