Columbia University
PAE-16: Committee on Socially Responsible Investment

“The Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing was established as a permanent addition to the University in March 2000. The Committee's purpose is to advise the University Trustees on ethical and social issues that arise in the management of the investments in the University's endowment.

The Committee will set its own agenda within the broad arena of socially responsible investing, and will, by formal vote of a majority of the Committee membership, make recommendations to the University Trustees on issues related to investments in the University's endowment, including but not limited to the exercise of the University's proxy-voting rights, shareholder initiatives, and portfolio screening. To this end, the Committee will set out a specific agenda to the Columbia community each fall to be submitted to the University Trustees and the University Senate. The Committee, however, will determine the SRI issues it researches and the recommendations it makes to the University, including its response to issues that arise after the preparation of its annual agenda.

The University will also provide the Committee with current information on a confidential basis regarding endowment holdings and investment management actions of the University related to SRI issues under review by the Committee. The Committee's deliberations using such information will take place in executive session, and information given the Committee regarding the University's endowment will be held in confidence by members of the Committee and used solely to formulate recommendations from the Committee to the University Trustees. To keep the Columbia community informed on these matters, the Committee's formal recommendations to the University Trustees and the subsequent action or response by the University Trustees will be reported.

To ensure that the Committee is broadly representative of the University community, its twelve voting members are drawn in equal proportion from students, faculty, and alumni of the University, and the process for the appointment of its members provides for balanced representation, over time, of the University's divisions and schools. Two University officers sit as non-voting members in addition to the twelve voting members.”

Columbia’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI) meets regularly throughout the academic year to garner consensus as to how to vote on proxies. This opinion is then forwarded to a subcommittee of the Trustees of the University who provide the definitive decision.

The SRI committee membership can be found here: http://finance.columbia.edu/content/sri-membership.
The ACSRI meets approximately 12 times a year. The number of meetings held corresponds to the number of proxies voted on, and these vary from year to year.