June 15, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two-thirds of the nation’s colleges and universities do not make public the holdings in their endowments, according to a survey by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, in Cambridge, Mass.
The institute, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, also found that nearly three-quarters of the educational institutions do not routinely make public information about how they vote their proxies on shareholder resolutions filed with companies in which they own stock.
Most colleges and universities said they do not actively cast their proxy votes, instead leaving the decisions to outside money managers who handle their investments.
That is similar to the way foundations handle their investments. In a Chronicle survey of the nation’s 50 wealthiest private foundations, only seven reported that they took an active role in deciding how to vote on their proxies (The Chronicle, May 4).
Just 5 percent of the 216 institutions that responded to the survey said they include students in the proxy-voting decision making. Yet nearly half (49 percent) said they would consider establishing advisory committees on campus including students and employees to make recommendations to the trustees about how to vote.
Mark Orlowski, executive director of the institute, said the organization hopes that the survey results will encourage more colleges and universities to become active in proxy voting and allow students to participate in the process.
“What we are looking to do is increase the educational opportunities that universities offer to students,” said Mr. Orlowski, a 2004 graduate of Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., where he served as a student representative on that institution’s proxy-voting advisory board. “That would further the institutional purpose of these schools.”
The institutions that participated in the survey have combined endowment assets of $193-billion, nearly two-thirds of all college and university endowment assets in the nation.
A summary of the survey results is available on the institute’s Web site, http://www.endowmentinstitute.org/survey.html.
