The Council of the Princeton University Committee (CPUC) met on Monday, Nov. 11, for its second meeting of the academic year. The University's endowment came under particular scrutiny, as the group discussed divestment from Israel and fossil fuel dissociation. The state of dialogue among students in the wake of the US presidential election marked another of the meeting’s major talking points.
The group, which meets roughly once a month, provides a rare opportunity for students and faculty to interface with top administrators, including University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, in a public setting. Here are the takeaways.
No definite timeline on divestment proposal from Israel
The CPUC Resources Committee is still deliberating on a proposal submitted over the summer to divest from companies affiliated to Israel. During the meeting’s open question period, University chief financial officer Jim Matteo noted that there is no set timeline for a decision to be made.
The Resources Committee, which considers issues related to the University’s endowment, held a campus-wide feedback period on the proposal at the beginning of October, where students, faculty, alumni, and staff were able to submit written comments through a form. Currently, the committee is “deliberating” and will next “produce a report that will be made public for the community,” Matteo noted.
In response to a question from postdoctoral research scholar Jessica Ng, Matteo also clarified the Resource Committee’s standard for campus consensus when evaluating a proposal.
“It’s not necessarily our opinions on the situation, it’s an assessment of the actions that the University should take based on the actions that are defined in that proposal,” he said.
In response to another question, University Secretary Hilary Parker ’01 said that the Resources Committee “does not actually take into consideration the nature or scale of the University’s investments in a particular company or set of companies” when considering divestment and dissociation.
No fossil-funded projects proposed since research ban roll back
In October, the University announced that it would allow fossil fuel companies otherwise meeting the dissociation criteria to fund research on campus, providing the research “aim[ed] to produce environmental benefits.” Projects funded in this vein would be reviewed by an ad hoc faculty committee, with the final decision given by University Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91, Dean of Research Peter Schiffer, and Dean of the Faculty Gene Jarrett ’97.
While the move sparked backlash from some student groups, Schiffer said that no one has yet proposed a research project that would have been barred under the previous dissociation rules.
“Most importantly, this change permits Princeton to maintain its leadership in the research that is most likely to make a real difference to the environment, and to the issues that motivated our dissociation decision in the first place,” Eisgruber said while presenting on the change at the meeting. “At the same time, Princeton retains restrictions on its acceptance of funding that go beyond those at other universities.”
Professor Steve Pacala, the director of the University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI), also discussed the benefits of collaborating with fossil fuel companies in research.
“The funding from fossil entities has allowed us to be nimble and to move more quickly when the need arises,” Pacala said. “I don’t want to oversell this, but interactions with fossil industry companies allow access sometimes to critical information that’s available nowhere else.”
Regarding efforts that the University made to secure alternate sources of funding for projects, Eisgruber conceded that the University had assumed that some of the partnerships with fossil fuel companies would be able to continue, and incorrectly assumed “the availability of other sorts of grants funding” for climate-focused research. He also said that the University’s Energy Fund, which was established to help offset some of the impact of dissociation, would continue to be available for research funding.
Alex Norbrook ’26, a member of Divest Princeton, asked about the potential use of University research to advance the public relations image of fossil fuel companies, otherwise termed “greenwashing,” as claimed in a congressional report released in the spring.
Norbrook is a staff Opinion writer for the ‘Prince.’
“When companies make decisions about funding, part of what they’re going to be motivated by are their self-interested concerns. But those concerns can be consistent with producing the kind of climate research that Professor Pacala just described,” Eisgruber responded.
Panel about dialogue in wake of election
The meeting concluded with a panel on action taken to promote dialogue among students. The panel included the Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Amaney Jamal, politics professor Steven Macedo GS ’87, and Dean of the Office of Religious Life (ORL) Theresa Thames.
Jamal focused on a series of University-sponsored events, the ongoing Dean’s Leadership Series, aimed at promoting unbiased understandings and facilitating discussion on campus around controversial world events, including the U.S. elections and the war in Gaza.
Macedo brought up a “social contract” provision in his syllabi asking students not to share comments made by their peers during class on social media.
“I make a special effort to represent contrarian views fairly, and that is to say viewpoints at odds with what seems to be the balance of elite opinions, at least on issues when I think the contrary viewpoints deserve to be taken seriously,” he said. “That sometimes, or even often, involves searching out and presenting the views of reasonable conservatives, because elite universities tend to be progressive environments.”
Thames discussed the benefits of the ORL’s Rose Castle Society in teaching students to engage in difficult conversations.
“Our students want to be in conversation and relationship with one another across differences. They also are desperately seeking tools,” Thames said, pointing to the 71 people who applied for the 16 slots in the Rose Castle’s cohort.
Aishwarya Swamidurai ’26 asked if staff or faculty were modeling the dialogue outlined by the administrators on the panel.
“I think in general, our faculty have been very deliberate about thinking about constructive dialogue,” Jamal answered. “But our faculty [and] staff also have viewpoints, and we’ve seen in real time, in space, some disagreements emerge,” she said, referencing recent faculty meetings in which contentious rules debate have occurred over the past few months.
Anna Konvicka GS asked the meeting’s final question. “I wonder how you view your obligations to open these spaces of dialogue to people who use those spaces to dehumanize other people,” she said.
“I find students respectful of one another and express their views quite respectfully and often sometimes excessively cautiously. I just haven’t had that experience in class,” Macedo responded.
The CPUC will meet next on Dec. 9 in Frist Campus Center’s Multi-Purpose Room.
Correction: This piece has been updated to clarify the next steps in the Resources Committee’s consideration process.
Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince’ from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor and the investigations editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Stockton, Calif. and often covers campus activism and University accountability.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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