The Brown University Community Council voted to support the creation of a social choice fund and discussed undergraduate housing and financial support for graduate students at its meeting in Leung Gallery yesterday.
At the beginning of the meeting, the BUCC voted to support a social choice fund following a presentation by Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Huidekoper and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies Harold Ward. The measure must be approved by the Brown Corporation's Investment Committee.
A social choice fund "would provide donors with the option of designating their donations to Brown for investment in a fund that chooses stocks based on environmental, social, and corporate behavior criteria," according to a September 2005 proposal from the University's Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investing.
"Our proposal is a recommendation for an investment policy that makes social choice funds available so donors to the University may invest gifts in funds that have a particular focus on social responsibility," Ward said.
Huidekoper and Ward expressed support for an environmental fund because "the quality of the environment is important to everyone, and there are funds focused in that area that are of interest to people as pressures grow to make energy use more efficient," Ward said.
Before recommending the creation of a social choice fund to the Corporation, Huidekoper said she would work with Ward to compile a list of environmentally sensitive options for investment. After evaluating the returns, fees and management of each, they would choose between one and three specific "vehicles" to comprise the social choice fund, Huidekoper said.
Huidekoper and Ward said inspiration for the social choice fund came from interest expressed by students and alums.
"We think this is a good social choice and we know personally that there are donors to Brown University that want to contribute to funds like that," Ward said.
After the BUCC voted to support the social choice fund, Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services, Russell Carey '91 MA'06 spoke about the University's need to increase attractive housing options for juniors and seniors.
"We need to identify housing as a priority," Carey said. "This is a residential university and we hope that residence hall lives can strengthen and enrich students' academic lives."
Among Carey's concerns about the University's current housing situation is Brown's ability to house students on campus compared to peer institutions such as Yale, Harvard and Cornell universities.
"Brown can house 80 percent of our undergrad population on campus," Carey said. "Most of our peers are well above that and we are not where we want to be in terms of our current undergraduate housing."
Carey said the University should aim to house 90 percent of the undergraduate student body on campus by adding 600 beds over the course of several years.
According to Carey, 73 percent of juniors and 39 percent of seniors live on campus this year.
Carey cited the lack of "independent living" options like suites and apartment-style housing as one issue the University must address in order to make on-campus housing attractive to upperclassmen.
Following Carey's remarks, Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde spoke about financial support for grad students, an issue raised at the BUCC meeting in October.
"This fall, we (are seeing) the first class (of doctoral candidates) enter with a guarantee of five years of support in form of fellowships or (teaching assistant)-ships. Doctoral support typically comes in a package of multiple years, and here we are finally competitive with our peer programs," Bonde said. "Typically, master's education is something for which there is limited financial aid and Brown is, in fact, remarkable in the amount of funding dedicated to students in master's programs."
Bonde noted that there "is no central organization overseeing aid for master's students," adding that "this is handled departmentally for each program."
Bonde said she has discovered that grad students often have expectations for funding that exceed stipulations in initial funding offers.
"Expectations are often based on precedent or on oral communication from other students or faculty members," Bonde said. "I have become aware that these communications need to be managed and controlled so that communication with graduate students is very clear."
Bonde said she is currently in the process of meeting with chairs of the individual Grad School programs to discuss how to monitor future offers so grad students know exactly what level of support they can expect to receive.
Grad students attending the BUCC meeting presented an open letter to the council calling for equal payment for doctoral candidates and master's students working as teaching assistants. The letter also called for need-based assistance or additional options for tuition remission to increase diversity in the Grad School as well as extended support for students in departments in which dissertations often take longer than the five years currently supported by the University.
Bonde said that while the University looks to provide support for students beyond their fifth year on a case-by-case basis, funding is limited.
