Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility announces coffee listening sessions
October 18, 2024
The Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility announced on Monday in an email to students and employees that it will be holding eight listening sessions with students, faculty and staff this October and November.
The committee, which was initially announced by President Safa Zaki in an email to the campus community in September, was formed in response to the “Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum” initiated by Bowdoin Students for Justice in Palestine last year and passed by a student body supermajority vote in May. In September, Zaki wrote that the committee would consider potential changes to the College’s investment strategies and communications practices and would seek to engage in conversation with the community on these issues.
Each listening session, which will take place over coffee and cookies, will last for 45 minutes. The first two of these sessions will occur on October 23 and 24.
“We hope these sessions will help us gain a better understand[ing] of the diverse perspectives of students, faculty and staff regarding calls for changes in Bowdoin’s investment strategies and of how the College might improve communication about these strategies,” Mary Hogan Preusse ’90, a trustee and the chair of the committee, wrote in an email to the Orient.
Within each session, attendees will be divided into groups by constituency—students, faculty and staff. Preusse explained that this format was chosen to allow members of the committee to connect directly with these groups.
“The listening sessions are opportunities for committee members—who are students, faculty, staff and trustees—to hear first and directly from the constituents they represent before taking on the rest of our work,” Preusse wrote.
Additionally, the committee encourages students who are unable to attend the listening sessions to send their feedback via email.
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