Carleton University’s Senate further stalled a divestment motion, outlined reasons for the summer quad closure and announced official approval for a new nursing program at a Sept. 27 meeting.
While senate meetings are usually held in-person, the Sept. 27 meeting was moved online because of “a report of a possible demonstration to be held outside of Pigiarvik,” university president Jerry Tomberlin said.
After consultation with the risk management office, Campus Safety Services and senators who expressed “concerns about their own personal safety,” the meeting format was changed, Tomberlin said.
“I may not please everyone, but I had to make a decision in the best interest of the people who work at Pigiarvik,” Tomberlin said.
Divestment motion
A motion calling on Carleton to review and assess its financial investments “regarding potential human rights violations against Palestinians” was once again stalled and tabled for further discussion at the next senate meeting on Oct. 18.
Nir Hagigi, the president of Independent Jewish Voices Carleton and a student senator, originally introduced the motion at the June 7 senate meeting. However, the motion was postponed to September to get more information from other experts, according to minutes from the June meeting.
Hagigi’s updated motion calls for the full disclosure of Carleton’s financial investments and “immediate divestment” from companies and organizations that are “complicit in human rights violations, particularly those profiting from the exploitation, surveillance and murder of the Palestinian people.”
In a presentation following the motion, interim vice-president of finance Angela Marcotte described how Carleton’s investment and pension committee makes decisions.
“The university has the legal obligation to act in the best interest of [investment] stakeholders,” Marcotte said. “That duty requires that we put their financial interests ahead of any other interests.”
Marcotte added Carleton’s investments align with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.
The pension and investment committee does not support “a simplistic divestment approach,” Marcotte said, citing legal ramifications. Investment decisions are “very complex and they involve a lot of different considerations,” she added.
Carleton University Students’ Association president Sarah El Fitori asked if the investment fund committee could look into companies who “create arms or surveillance weapons or anything that furthers the plight of people and war.”
She pointed to the university’s 1987 divestment from apartheid South Africa as an example of previous divestment action for human rights reasons.
Andrew Clark, the director of pension funds, said the committee has had those discussions.
“Financial decisions have to be paramount and defence is a big sector of the economy, and so the pension plan has to think like a fiduciary first,” Clark said. “Unless there’s international laws being broken, which our manager said they were not, then it’s difficult for us to divest.”
Discussion on the divestment motion was cut short after the meeting went past its planned end time. Senator Matthew Pearson motioned to postpone the discussion, with the condition that the divestment motion be the first thing on the agenda at the next senate meeting on Oct. 18.
Hagigi withdrew the divestment motion, with the intention to reintroduce an amended version, based on new information and discussion with community members, at the next meeting.
April quad closure update
During question period, Tomberlin said the possibility of an encampment contributed to the decision to close the academic quad in April.
“The decision to close the quad was a judgment call I made. I make no apologies for having taken that decision,” Tomberlin said. “The possibility of an encampment on our campus was a real one at that time, and if such an encampment had taken place, having it in the quad would have been dangerous.”
His comments contradict an earlier university statement sent to the Charlatan iterating that the quad was only closed for maintenance reasons.
Official approval of nursing program
Carleton’s new nursing program has received official approval from Ontario’s Ministry of College and Universities, vice-president of academics Pauline Rankin announced during the meeting.
In a senate meeting last January, Rankin said the creation of the program responds to “an important societal need to have more nurses.”
“It’s obviously an excellent opportunity for us to attract new students and it’s going to be an important source of revenue,” she told senators in the January meeting.
Carleton will partner with the Queensway Carleton Hospital to deliver the program, which will officially launch in the fall 2025 semester.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi
