Recent research summarized in a Greenbiz blog by Robert Kroop suggests that college and university endowments are no longer leaders in environmental, social, and corporate-governance (ESG) investment. A report from the IRRC Institute and Tellus Institute entitled Environmental, Social and Governance Investing by College and University Endowments found transparency of ESG investments to be poor despite the proliferation of sustainability survey tools. The results were based on aggregate data from multiple survey datasets, including data from public STARS reports.

The September STARS blog highlights data in the Investment subcategory of STARS to provide context to the report’s findings. The institutions highlighted in this blog provide evidence of best practices in sustainable investment - an area that has proved challenging for many institutions.

Sustainable Investment
The Investment subcategory in STARS awards up to 17.5 points for investment decisions that promote sustainability. Average available points earned are lowest in the Investment category when compared to all other STARS subcategories by a significant margin. (The second-lowest subcategory is Energy, at 20.5 percent of available points earned)

The chart below and on the left displays average available points earned in the Planning, Administration & Engagement (PAE) category, which includes Investment and four other subcategories. The chart on the right displays average available points earned for each of the six credits within Investment.

Source: STARS Average Scores dashboard visualization
Note: Total point value is represented by the size of each slice. Average available points earned is indicated by the radius of the colored fill of each slice.

Investment Credits
STARS data support the finding in the ESG report suggesting that there may be a lack of transparency for investment among college endowments. As shown in the table below, only 34 percent of institutions indicated that they make snapshots of investment holdings available to the public. In addition to this, 60 to 70 percent of STARS-Rated institutions did not pursue PAE credits 16, 17, and 18, and several institutions stated that the information was not available, particularly if the endowment was managed by an independent Foundation.

On average, institutions earn .69 out of 9 points for PAE 18: Positive Sustainability Investment, making it the Investment credit with the lowest rate of average available points earned. Nonetheless, three institutions earned maximum points by investing 30 percent or more in sustainable investments. These included Okanagan College and Simon Fraser University (both in British Columbia, Canada) and Haywood Community College in North Carolina.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas came close to earning full points for PAE 18, with 25 percent of its total investment in sustainability investment funds.

Visitors to the AASHE website can access case studies, publications, and related finance and investment resources in the Sustainable Investment and Financing section of the AASHE Resource Center.

With significant room for improvement among colleges and universities in the area of ESG investment, STARS and other survey tools can help motivate institutions to increase investment transparency. As institutions develop and improve tracking mechanisms for positive sustainability investments, we hope to see marked improvement in Investment scores.

With the development of STARS 2.0 under way and a public comment period set to start in the coming weeks, members of the public will have the opportunity to provide feedback on improvements to STARS that may encourage transparency of ESG investment among colleges and universities. Readers can provide feedback on sustainable investment and other topics at any time by emailing stars@aashe.org.

The following research positions have been posted recently to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! You can also find out more by downloading the attachment.

• Fall Intern - Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.
  
• On-Campus RC Helicopter pilot- UMBC Geography & Environmental Systems
  
• Research Assistant / United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
  
• Protocol Development Intern- Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Student Mental Health Research Assistant - Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Volunteer Opportunities in Mental Health- Sheppard Pratt Health System
  
• Research Assistant / ExecuQuest Corp.
  
• Research Assistant- Sage Policy Group
• Research Clinical Extern- UMB School of Medicine
• Disaster Caseworker-American Red Cross
• Paid Research & Marketing Interns- BioMarker Strategies
• Paid Parent-Child Interaction Video Coder-University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)
• R&D Intern- Quantum Medical Metrics, LLC
• Research and Policy Assistant- United States Department of Education
• Research Development Intern- iHire, LLC
• Research Intern- The Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit
• Nutrition Intern- University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)
• Paid Research Technician Intern- Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
• Volunteer Policy/Research Intern- Minority Business Roundtable
• Research Assistantship- Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland
• Advancement Department Intern- American Red Cross 
• Assistant Proposal Coordinator- Ross Technologies, Inc. (RTGX)
• Big Data & Cloud Software and Research- Ross Technologies, Inc. (RTGX)
• Paid Research Assistant- UMBC Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education(CUERE)
  

The Baltimore Sun recently chronicled UMBC’s rise over the past two decades into a nationally-recognized powerhouse for academic innovation.

As the campus approaches its 50th anniversary in 2016, UMBC sports enviable credentials, the Sun wrote: “It’s cited as America’s top up-and-coming university and a leader in undergraduate teaching by U.S. News. It has an endowment of about $60 million, built from less than $1 million when Hrabowski took over. Research funding has risen from less than $10 million to about $90 million.”

While UMBC is known for excellence in a wide range of fields, the Sun notes that the university has found remarkable success in areas where higher education nationally has struggled. “Educational heavyweights such as MIT and Stanford have been to Catonsville to study the methods with which UMBC churns out elite black graduates in the sciences. How, they want to know, has a 46-year-old university, founded to serve commuters, cracked the code to one of American education’s most vexing problems?”

The piece comes as President Hrabowski marks his 20th year leading UMBC, and it paints a picture of university and leader both deeply committed to students’ success.

“This is a guy who’s on a flight to speak somewhere every other day,” Jeremy Brickey ’12, English, said of President Hrabowski. “But here he takes the time to talk with me for 30 minutes all the time. It’s amazing.”

Miguel Calderon ’12, Visual Arts, seconded that: “I can’t speak to other universities. But from what I hear, it’s not an everyday thing to see the president asking students, ‘How are your classes? What did you get on your last test? You didn’t do well? Maybe you need a tutor.’ It’s really a miraculous thing.”

More than that, though, President Hrabowski stressed that it’s a sign of the culture of UMBC, and of the dedication of so many faculty and staff members. It’s who we are.

“It is part of the work of education to have substantive relationships with your students,” President Hrabowski told the Sun. “What people don’t realize is that everybody needs support, one way or another.”

Musician Devin Walker ’89, political science, took his “Uncle Devin” show to the U.S. Capitol this summer, sharing educational music with children and parents alike.
Walker, who plays the drums, calls the show “a live, interactive musical experience for children five and over by renowned drummer Devin Walker. The show cultivates the minds of children through percussion instruments and is a dynamic cross between Fat Albert and Schoolhouse Rock.”
View photos from the show here.  Read more about the show here.
Walker and his jazz band, A Sense of Urgency, will be one of three alumni-driven bands playing at this year’s Homecoming Crab Feast on Saturday, October 13. (The others are: Fiddlin’ Around, an Irish folk band featuring UMBC’s own staff and faculty members Terry Aylsworth, Eric Ebersole, and William Farrell, and alums David Aylsworth ’74, Tara Ebersole ’08 and Sara Moreland ’97; and Black Falls, a blues and classic rock band featuring alumnus Philip Medenbach, Jr. ’87.)
For more information about the event, visit the Homecoming website here.

Musician Devin Walker ’89, political science, took his “Uncle Devin” show to the U.S. Capitol this summer, sharing educational music with children and parents alike.

Walker, who plays the drums, calls the show “a live, interactive musical experience for children five and over by renowned drummer Devin Walker. The show cultivates the minds of children through percussion instruments and is a dynamic cross between Fat Albert and Schoolhouse Rock.”

View photos from the show here.  Read more about the show here.

Walker and his jazz band, A Sense of Urgency, will be one of three alumni-driven bands playing at this year’s Homecoming Crab Feast on Saturday, October 13. (The others are: Fiddlin’ Around, an Irish folk band featuring UMBC’s own staff and faculty members Terry Aylsworth, Eric Ebersole, and William Farrell, and alums David Aylsworth ’74, Tara Ebersole ’08 and Sara Moreland ’97; and Black Falls, a blues and classic rock band featuring alumnus Philip Medenbach, Jr. ’87.)

For more information about the event, visit the Homecoming website here.

University of Maryland, Baltimore “Frontiers in Genomics” Symposium (10/18)

The University of Maryland, Medical School’s Institute for Genome Sciences will hold a free symposium this coming October at the UM BioPark located at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

The symposium, marking IGS’s fifth anniversary, will be ”a day of innovative discussion and scientific exchange” that “host[s] internationally recognized scientists who are unlocking new discoveries in genomics, bioinformatics and personalized medicine,” according to the invitation to the symposium.

The symposium will run from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm on Thursday, October 18. The event is free, so those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP as soon as possible. UMB asks that faculty at other institutions encourage their students to attend.

For questions and RSVPs, please contact via e-mail through email to igs-event@som.umaryland.edu, or fax to 410.706.6777.