Student Senate Continues Discourse on UC Investments

One week after a heated nine-hour-long senate meeting regarding divestment from companies involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, UCSB’s Associated Student Senate had a much shorter and less contentious meeting regarding UC Regents’ financial investments. The senate unanimously passed a two-part resolution expected to take five years to complete. The new bill addresses all money that the UC system invests and has the long-term goal of being implemented UC-wide at every campus. The first part of the resolution says that the student senate officially takes the stance that UC Regents should create a system of monitoring the morality and social responsibility of their investments and that the restrictions placed will become stricter each year. The second part creates an ad hoc committee made up of few students, student senators, and members of the student Investment Advisory Committee. This committee will have two weeks to create the actual system they are asking UC Regents to follow.

The committee will present the system at the last senate meeting this year, at which the current senate and the newly elected senate meet, and the idea is that both senates will approve the system, showing unilateral support for the investigation into UC investments. If the system is passed by both student senates, a new committee will be tasked with spreading the system UC-wide over the summer, with the hope that come fall 2014, each UC student senate can present a strong, unified plan to the UC Regents, suggesting that the Regents make investment choices that follow the system. Following such a heated year of debate over investments specifically involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Guy Singer, a member of the ad hoc committee, stated,“Tonight the UCSB Associated Students came together regardless of political affiliation to create a game plan that will ultimately benefit every UC student regardless of their personal community ties.”