Executive Branch introduces Investment Advisory Committee

The Undergraduate Student Government Executive Branch has begun work on its Investment Advisory Committee to increase transparency and awareness surrounding the UNC investment and endowment management. 

On Oct. 16, the branch's Instagram account posted about the committee’s first meeting, which Undergraduate Secretary and committee member Jakob Williams said was held on Aug. 28.

“The primary mission, honestly, is to ensure that students have voice and understanding,” Williams said. 

The committee is composed of 14 members including undergraduate and graduate student government figures, faculty, staff, administration and Jonathon King, the president and CEO of UNC Management Company, Inc., a nonprofit organization that manages UNC System investments.

Student Body President Jaleah Taylor worked with Chancellor Lee Roberts to develop the committee, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations and committee member Nathan Knuffman said.

Williams said the Executive Council began committee planning over the summer, involving a review of similar committees at other universities and selecting specific members from the UNC community. 

Undergraduate Chief of the Cabinet and committee member Nigel Parker said the committee was formed largely to address student concerns about UNC investment and endowment practices that the Executive Branch noticed last spring. One of the most pressing concerns, Parker said, was student demands regarding University spending and the Israel-Hamas war.

“Over the past year, it's undeniable that students have questioned our endowment and that students have demands around our endowment in some cases,” Parker said.

UNC Students for Justice in Palestine has hosted numerous protests where demonstrators shared their list of demands to the University, which include requiring UNC to divest from Israel and Israel-supporting companies.

“We wouldn't be doing our jobs in student government if we didn't try to find solutions or make progress on some of the main issues that students are raising on campus,” Parker said.

The committee will not have decision-making authority over University investment management, committee member and Executive Assistant to the Executive Manager Khizra Ahmad said. Instead, she said its primary purpose is to create a more open dialogue between students and administrators about how the University manages its investment and endowment funds.

“Without having that baseline understanding, you won't be able to have any productive conversation about change,” Ahmad said.

That’s why the committee’s first meeting involved hearing from King about UNCMC, which manages the UNC Investment Fund and the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation Investment Fund. 

UNCIF, the investment fund for the UNC System, is currently valued at $11.1 billion, according to a Sept. 18 UNCMC presentation to The Board of Trustees, while CHIF, the fund for UNC-CH specifically, is valued at $5.6 billion.

“I see my role as being one of providing information and sort of being a resource to the committee,” King said.

He said this role allows him to clear up misunderstandings surrounding what UNCMC does. 

King said most people don't understand what the endowment is comprised of and how it's invested. The endowment, a subset of CHIF, is valued at $2.4 billion dollars, according to the UNCMC presentation. It is the collection of several different funds from donors to support specific programs, King said. No tuition dollars or state appropriations are invested in the endowment.

“It's a very kind of specialized subset of the university's financial resources,” King said.

Williams said the committee’s job is to help students better understand these nuances by sharing information from committee meetings with the student body. 

The executive branch is currently working on scheduling its next committee meeting, he said.

As secretary, Williams is also looking at other means of communicating committee findings to students, including the possibility of newsletters and surveys.

“It's an important platform for being able to take the concerns that obviously we're hearing across campus and then express those concerns to the individuals who are in control of these certain things,” Williams said.

The Investment Advisory Committee is the first one of its kind in USG history, Ahmad said. However, it’s not the first time investment management has been in discussion on campus.

“We have to look back at UNC history and realize that there have been many times where the topic of UNC’s investment has been called into question,” she said.

In 1987, UNC-CH officially divested from South African companies after almost a decade of student protests due to the country’s apartheid system. More recently, students have called for greater transparency surrounding investments around environmental justice issues, Parker said.

While the Investment Advisory Committee is still relatively new, Parker said he thinks it is a starting place to begin a dialogue about University investments. He said his goal is for the committee to eventually expand into an external appointment, which would allow any student to apply to be on the committee instead of the current members, who were solely selected by the executive branch.

“It is my sincere hope that this Investment Advisory Committee is a step in that right direction,” Parker said. “But that it is not the only step, or even the biggest one.”

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