“Tom [Kannam] joined Wesleyan in 1998 and has been responsible for developing our investment strategies. He works closely with trustees, but also with students interested in socially responsible investing and the Quantitative Analysis Center.” – Michael Roth, August 28th 2009, on his blog.
As you probably know already, Investment Officer Tom Kannam was fired by Wesleyan for breach of fiduciary duty, civil theft, breach of contract, fraud, statutory forgery, and unjust enrichment several weeks later.
Back during the divestment campaign led by Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI), concerned students met with Kannam, Wesleyan’s highest paid employee. Witnesses claim that he was totally uninterested and unhelpful. So much for working closely with “students interested in socially responsible investing!” Preisdent Roth’s misrepresentation of Tom Kannam’s work with these students goes to show how important it is that student voices are heard loud and clear when it comes to our investments. The Wesleyan administration has done a poor job watching where or how its money is being invested. If we can’t even effectively prevent fraud, there’s little chance that responsible investing is a serious priority.
Where our money goes must be more transparent, and students must have a stronger input into our investments. Mismanagement of Wesleyan’s money extends beyond preventing corruption like this. How our investments affect the world outside Wesleyan must be considered, because no investment is neutral. Where we put our money has consequences. One way we can have more of a voice in our investments is through the newly formed Committee for Investor Responsibility (CIR). The CIR was formed by the Board of Trustees as a compromise from the SEWI divestment campaign, and it is finally getting running this year. The CIR has the potential to be a vastly more transparent and effective medium through which we can alter our investments. Students who have concerns about irresponsible investments should be able to use this committee to get investment information, and find strategies for changing our school’s investment policy.
Peer institutions have had committees like this for much longer than we have, and they are effective. For example, Hampshire College has had a strong socially responsible investment policy ever since its divestment from South African apartheid in 1979. Wesleyan, on the other had, only partially divested from companies complicit in the apartheid regime in 1990 when the regime was already hanging on by a thread, and it took a molotov cocktail through a South College window for even that to happen (we do not advocate this strategy!).
The lesson from this scandal is that we cannot trust the administration to do the right thing with its money without oversight. It takes student voices and student action. Now is the time for students to have a stronger voice about what our school does with our money.
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