Last Week’s Minutes
Approved unanimously.
VSOs
Stanford unmanned aerial vehicles club:
Event jointly with club and aero/Astro dept student happy hour group. Having cold cut sandwiches and wings for food. Recommendation is $450 for food. Expecting 45 people. Voting, passes unanimously.
Peruvian student assoc:
cultural event, partnered with latin america cultural center. Have cultural dances, live band playing Peruvian music, collaborating on food and honorarium for dancers. Recommendation is $1000 food, $500 honoraria. Expecting 150 students to show up. Voting, passes unanimously.
Dutch at Stanford
Dutch entrepreneurs visiting Stanford want to talk to Stanford students and professors. Having a BBQ on June 5, asking for food for grad students, expect about 20-25 students, asking for $200 for food. Recommendation is $200 for food. Voting, passes unanimously.
BGSA:
Transfer from leftover to graduation event. Recommended a transfer $167.68 for food since they hit the food cap. Voting, passes unanimously. Voting on remnant, fails.
Justine talks about Buffer Fund guidelines
This bill creates a joint committee with UGS and financial manager to figure out policies for buffer fund. Bill on previous notice. Appointees would meet with UGS and Financial manager to talk about past uses of buffer fund, and discuss how it should be used. This committee has recommendation powers only. Trevor asks about ppl interested in this. Nobody so far. Voting on bill, passes unanimously. Voting to appoint Pau as representative, vote passes unanimously.
Resolution to Divest from Fossil Fuel
Summary of what happened last meeting. Showing that we believe that companies which participate in fossil fuels are degrading various environmental aspects. Mike asked about updates to grad student polling, they didn’t do it, they think that we should investigate ourselves. No more questions. Eduardo asks, if there’s going to be a resolution in the spring, why do we need to vote on this before the grad wide vote? Because there are many Board of Trustee meetings before this. Durgesh asks if they have data on other schools that have made this decision too. There are 11 schools which have divested in coal or fossil fuel companies. Univ of Cal just launched a task force looking at this issue. James B asks, are we setting a precedent that any group that doesn’t like something begins a campaign like this? What if people feel equally passionate in investing in companies which pay a living wage, or don’t operate in middle east, etc? How do we decide which companies are ok to divest from? They say, there is a very strong scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is harming the earth, it’s a fact by science. James ask if they would support some kind of resolution regarding companies which do not recognize same sex marriage? They say maybe, it does cause substantial social injury. Eduardo says, we don’t need a precedent of a resolution being passed for people to start a campaign. Trevor says he agrees with Eduardo. Durgesh asks, can they talk about the overall impact this is likely to have on this industry? If we have ethical investors divesting from dirty tech, someone else would be buying these shares anyways, so we lose our rights in this company, maybe it’s even more unethical. It’s self selection, have investors selecting for companies that don’t care about the environment. They say that, their main goal isn’t to financially impact the companies, but to make a political / moral statement, to get out of companies which cause substantial social injury. There’s no evidence of Stanford doing anything to introduce clean policies into these companies. The larger issue is whether or not these companies are causing climate change. Stanford does have responsibility on investor responsibility, they do act in favor of environmental policies, but these companies’ main mission is to exploit the non renewable resources. Stanford has not managed to change that. In terms of coal, Stanford’s divestment is reverberating across the country. Bryce asks how do they know that Stanford’s efforts in these companies have not changed anything? They say they don’t really know for sure, but their reports on investment responsibility, which says what they are doing in these investments, is more transparent. It’s feasible that Stanford could make something happen, but you’ll never get the majority of investors in a fossil fuel company to agree to change. Durgesh says, he appreciates the spirit of the concern, but in trying to making a symbolic statement, they may end up having a negative impact if they don’t fully understand what would happen as the ownership of these companies changes. They say, again, that even when majority shareholders want to change something in the company, fossil fuel companies have refused to change their actions. Talks given by Shell and Exxon in the past months has been about super tankers to doing bigger and better drilling, about how natural gas is the future, nobody mentions renewable energy. The magnitude of the effect of these companies is so large that even if there is an incremental change in how they think about renewables, it’s still going to be a tiny fraction only. So the statement is much more powerful than that incremental change. It’s also the Board of Trustee’s prerogative that if this would be a negative effect on the endowment, then they will make sure this does not happen. The committee that recommended the divestment of coal has already found that Stanford is already unable to work with these companies because they are antithetical to the healthy operation of the Earth. Arushi asks about the implications if this resolution is passed. They say it is completely symbolic, but they’ve been told by a number of administrators that they would like to hear from as many students as possible. Grad students are one group that hasn’t spoken up significantly on this issue yet, they would like to let the administration know. Voting on the resolution to divest from fossil fuels, it’s just a majority vote, abstentions don’t factor into it. Voting, 6 in favor, 4 opposed, 2 abstentions. Resolution passes.
GSC Positions Open
Trevor is desperate. DESPERATE.
Publicity chair: needs to send out weekly grad events email, takes all events from our calendar and sends it out in the email. They have a Python script where they just need to download the script and press enter. Arushi volunteers for the position!
Social chairs: plan one large event every quarter.
Red Box with Money
Petr’s friend came asking for money for the unpaid internship commute, but didn’t take the money. There’s still money in the red box.
Advocacy Update
Leave of absense with incomplete grades: there is a petition form that nobody knows about, Bryce got the Stanford bulletin and GAP to add a line to say that if you leave for a medical reason, go to this website to petition for an extension.
David says that Kerry is bringing final plan for BBQ for next week, he will write a bill to fund it.
Bryce says next week is the last meeting.
