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Friday, March 29, 2024
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	Students urged the AU Board of Trustees to divest by marching around campus with cardboard signs on Feb. 21.

Fossil Free AU line hallways in latest push for divestment

The Board of Trustees may vote in May to remove University investments from the fossil fuel industry after 80 students with the Fossil Free AU campaign silently held cardboard signs asking the Board of Trustees to divest at the Feb. 21 board meeting.

Students occupied every hall, elevator, doorway and parking garage leading into Butler Boardroom, where the Board of Trustees met, said Deirdre Shelly, a junior in the School of International Service who has been a member of the campaign for a year. Board of Trustee meetings are closed to the public.

“Climate change isn’t going away and neither are we,” Shelly said.

Fossil Free AU seeks to remove any of AU’s endowment currently invested in stocks with resources that contribute to climate change within five years of the University agreeing to divest. The campaign does not seek to stop the use of fossil fuels on campus, Shelly said.

SIS junior Thomas Meyer, who has been with the campaign since its beginning in November 2012, described Feb. 21 as an “action,” rather than a protest against the Board of Trustees.

February’s action was unlike the loud rally that took place during the November Board of Trustees meeting where students chanted and lifted signs to the 6th floor of Butler Pavillion with balloons, The Eagle previously reported.

The 80 sign-holding students broke their silence and marched away from Butler Pavillion chanting on Feb. 21 when the Board of Trustees meeting was scheduled to begin, Shelly said.

Shelly and three other students in Fossil Free AU met with President Neil Kerwin on Feb. 20 to address the president’s reservations about pulling the University’s investments out of fossil fuels and the potential of being the first university to divest in the nation. The students did not receive definitive answers from Kerwin on how AU would proceed.

“We were happy as a campaign to just get a meeting,” Shelly said.

Students with the campaign are preparing for the annual Student Government open town hall with Kerwin and Board of Trustee Chairman Jeff Sine, Shelly said.

The town hall will likely be students’ last chance to address divestment with Kerwin and Sine before the next Board of Trustees meeting in May. A date has not been set for the town hall, but it will likely occur in March or April, SG President Patrick Kelly said via Twitter.

There is no guarantee that the Board of Trustees will vote on divestment in May.

Students involved with Fossil Free AU would like to see AU be a leader in not just a sustainable lifestyle on campus but be a national leader in divesting from fossil fuels, Meyer said.

“Back up the big talk,” Meyer said.

shogan@theeagleonline.com


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