About SRIC
The Socially Responsible Investment Committee (SRIC) is a Bard student-led committee under Bard Student Government. The mission of the committee is to leverage power over corporations through shareholder engagement. We hope to break the stigma surrounding Economics and Finance by emphasizing potential positive social changes through the creation of intellectual accessibility. Our goal is to use investments as a tool to incentivize social responsibility within corporations. We bridge the gap between Bard’s administrative actions and student input. The committee is made up of a small group of student representatives and the college’s Chief Financial Officer, Taun Toay.
What is Shareholder Activism?
Shareholder activism is a way in which shareholders can influence a corporation’s behavior by exercising their rights as owners of shares. Even though shareholders don’t run the company, there are still many ways for them to influence the company’s business practices and management. Shareholders can engage with the company to change their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) or DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies to best align with their ideologies.
Current Investment
We inherited Urban Outfitter from the previous committees and we recently divested from ExxonMobil and used its proceeds to purchase Nestlé.
Recent updates
Financial Literacy and Transparency
In an effort to better communicate the role of endowments in higher education and Bard’s quest to build one commensurate to its academic ambition, Taun Toay, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, outlines the path forward for Bard and its current endowment holdings. Additional educational material on endowments and Bard’s holdings and a feedback form, as of September 2024, are attached as well.
Updated SEC Law
SRIC has been purchasing the minimum share required to submit shareholder resolutions, which was over $2000 or 1% of the company for 1 year. However, the amended ownership requirements says we have to either buy much more shares or hold for over 2-3 years before we can engage directly. Bard College does not have an endowment fund that will allow us to meet the $25,000 threshold and 3 years is a significant amount of time for a committee made up of students who are typically only here for 4 years.
Rule 14a-8(b). Rule 14a-8(b) was amended to replace the prior ownership thresholds, which required holding at least $2,000 or 1% of a company’s securities for at least one year, with three alternative thresholds as shown in the table below.
| Pre-Amendment Ownership Requirements | Amended Ownership Requirements |
|---|---|
| ≥$2,000 or 1% of a company’s securities for at least 1 year | ≥$2,000 for at least 3 years |
| ≥$15,000 for at least 2 years | |
| ≥$25,000 for at least 1 year |
The amendments to Rule 14a-8(b) also prohibit shareholders from aggregating their holdings for the purpose of satisfying the amended ownership thresholds. Although shareholders are permitted to co-file proposals, each co-filer must individually satisfy one of the ownership thresholds.
We recently joined the SSEN
The SSEN which is a student shareholder activist network with Intentional Endowment Network and As You Sow on the advisory board. Being a member of this network has many benefits: we get support from industry experts and we can also collaborate with other colleges who have much larger endowment funds than we do (NYU, Arizona State University, UC Boulder, etc). This will help with our issue of ownership requirement as we can express support to another institution as shareholders even if we ourselves can’t submit shareholder resolutions yet. SRIC has represented Bard College as one of the most active inaugural schools since the founding of SSEN, hence we have earned Bard a guaranteed spot on the SSEN advisory board. We are also working on continuity of the committee which will ease the pressure holding period mandate, contact us if you are interested in joining!
For more Information or interest to join:
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @bardsric
Current Members 2023–24
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Taun ToayChief Financial Officer
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Emily HuangChair
[email protected] -
Lauren MendozaMember
[email protected] -
Zoe GibsonMember
[email protected] -
Maksym PanchokhaMember
[email protected] -
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Sabina ChivaMember
[email protected]
Response to Climate Strike
SRIC held a panel in November 2019
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Shareholder activism vs. divestmentThis event happened following increasing concerns as to whether Bard should divest from Exxon (the company students voted for in the blind vote in fall of 2017) following the climate strike which demands we divest from any holdings in fossil fuels.
Shareholder activism vs. divestment
This event happened following increasing concerns as to whether Bard should divest from Exxon (the company students voted for in the blind vote in fall of 2017) following the climate strike which demands we divest from any holdings in fossil fuels.
The panel came to the conclusion that we since we are currently invested in Exxon that we should engage with them to request positive social changes pertaining to climate change initiatives (by filing a shareholder resolution) and if they accept our request then we follow up with them and reinvest in another company. If they deny our request, we may follow up with another resolution or divest and possibly make a noisy exit when we do.
