Endowment concern
Last Monday, The Hatchet front page headline read: “GW endowment grows 12 percent” (Feb. 13, p. 1). While this read as excellent news for our University and our local community, it could mean serious harm to some of the most vulnerable members of our international community. Here’s how: GW’s endowment may possibly be invested in companies that do business with the government of Sudan, a regime responsible for 400,000 murders in its western region of Darfur. As political, diplomatic and military efforts fail to halt this genocide, divestment is one of the leading remedies we as private citizens hold.
This idea is not just a vision but a proven policy option. Divestment was employed successfully to end Apartheid in South Africa and again to pressure Sudan through the Canadian energy company Talisman in the late 1990s. The states of New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon have all approved Sudan divestment plans following the atrocities in Darfur over the past two years, as have Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Amherst and the University of California system. Our University is devoted – as much as any other – to public service in support of our country and our world. Funding genocide in Sudan would be anathema to our mission.
This is not as daunting of a task as it might seem. The Sudan Divestment Taskforce of California has identified 17 companies contributing heavily to the Sudanese government’s revenue – and, in turn, arming mass-murderers. We ask for a thorough review of the University’s assets to determine whether GW funds in any way contribute to these offenders. Asset managers such as Barclay’s Global are making this process easy, creating standardized solutions for divestment.
GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s stated goal “is to see if we can take (GW’s endowment) over a billion dollars in the next years.” Let us make sure such good news for GW is good news for the entire world. Let us push for divestment from Sudan because to deal with extraordinary crimes, we must take extraordinary actions.
-Claire Zelie, sophomore, Treasurer, GW Students Taking Action Now: Darfur
Create film major
GW does not have a film major. There is a clear need and a strongdesire from students for a film major; however, this desire is apparently not clear enough or strong enough for GW to recognize. Some may think it’s just a tiny group of outspoken film minors who want the major in the first place. I beg to differ!
In my senior thesis class, we recently went around the room to discuss our thesis topics, and much to our American Studies professor’s dismay, nearly every single senior planned on writing a thesis on a film, or several films. The room was filled with people like me who wanted to explore film and its significance in culture, the film industry, or the themes and visuals of certain films in very close detail. I personally chose the American Studies major because it was the closest possible thing to a film major I could engineer at GW, but I was surprised to learn that so many other people had basically done the same thing.
This leads me to wonder: if so many GW students want to study film and are willing to devote an entire semester of research and thesis preparation on film, why doesn’t GW step up to the plate and offer them a film major? It just doesn’t make sense that so many people want to explore this particular academic path, yet the school simply refuses to allow them to do so.
I don’t want to have to try to view a film thesis through an American Studies lens. I shouldn’t have to take something I’m passionate about and water it down into something I’m not all that interested in. I should be able to just take my film topic, my thesis idea and follow through with it.
The system is completely flawed and it needs to change!
-Alexis Gentry, senior
