A new campus club is investigating whether its endowment can fit under the banner of social justice. Independent Voices for Endowment Sustainability and Transparency is campaigning for greater endowment transparency to ensure that the corporations Brandeis supports share the University's values.

This all started, the group's founder, Alex Melman '11, said, when the Sustainable Endowment Institute published its College Sustainability Environmental Report Card and Brandeis received a C. Part of the reason for this grade was that Brandeis scored an F on all of the endowment-related criteria, such as transparency, he said.

InVEST has drawn the support of a number of activist groups on campus, such as Students for Environmental Action and Democracy for America, said club member Liza Behrendt '11. "It's one thing for a group of students to target an issue, but it's another thing when you are targeting an issue and the goals of the University are counterproductive," she said.

Behrendt cited Students Taking Action Now, a Darfur group on campus, as an example of why endowment transparency is necessary. The group ran an entire divestment campaign to compel Brandeis to withdraw its funds from Darfur profiteers, only to learn that Brandeis was never invested in companies that profited from Darfur in the first place.

"We don't know what our University is representing in the broader financial sector. We have a huge endowment, half a billion dollars, and that money has big influence," Behrendt said. "So as students, we're sort of symbolic shareholders. We are the ones who are paying the money."

Also, the University itself does not vote at shareholder meetings, but hires proxy voters who may be more permissive of policies that violate the University's values, Melman said.

So far, Melman has corresponded with University President Jehuda Reinharz via e-mail, and has met with Chief Investment Officer and Vice President for Investment Management Deborah Kuenstner. "They don't think that the University should have any endowment transparency at all," Mellman said. However, he commended them on how helpful they were, as they agreed to meet with him to discuss the issue.

InVEST's main action so far has been to spread awareness, Melman said, and the group has acquired 500 signatures on its petition.

The Student Union Senate unanimously passed a resolution March 23 sponsored by Village Quad Senator Michael Kerns '09 and North Quad Senator Kaamila Mohamed '11 that declared the Union's support of the group.

The purpose of the resolution was to urge Union President Shreeya Sinha '09 to create an advisory committee to the Board of Trustees.

According to the group's Web site, the committee would "make recommendations, in the interests of the Brandeis community, pertaining to the management of the investments in the University's endowment concerning social issues."

"I think that it's as simple as putting our money where our mouth is," Kerns said, "We should be responsible corporate citizens."

The club has also met with the graduate student body, which expressed interest in its cause, and has attempted to reach out to faculty members, but no professorss have responded to the group's requests yet, Anna Khandros '11 said.

"One of Brandeis' four pillars is social justice," Khandros said, "and we hope that [the endowment] reflects this pillar.