Josh, Daly

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Conversations on Jesuit Higher EducationVolume 44 Article 79-1-2013Just Employment and Investment Policies: An IdeaWhose Time Has ComeDaly JoshFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversationsRecommended CitationJosh, Daly (2013) "Just Employment and Investment Policies: An Idea Whose Time Has Come," Conversations on Jesuit HigherEducation: Vol. 44, Article 7.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol44/iss1/7Conversations 13Have our Jesuit campuses fully lived outtheir ideals when it comes to the rightsof campus workers and the investmentof university endowments? . . . . . . . . .A three-year campaign for a livingwage for contract workers atGeorgetown peaked in 2005, when students went on anine-day hunger strike. At Loyola New Orleans, a cam-paign by students and dining services workers crescen-doed after a well-loved employee was fired for herunion-organizing activity.For administrators, responding to situations likethese has been fraught with challenges around neutrali-ty in labor disputes and financial constraints. Given this,it would be easy to dismiss protesting students as radi-cal or naïve. But then, too, we would have to dismiss thechallenging call of the late Jesuit superior general Fr.Pedro Arrupe to practice the works of justice:• First, a basic attitude of respect for all people thatforbids us ever to use them as instruments for ourown profit.• Second, a firm resolve never to profit from or allowourselves to be suborned by positions of powerderiving from privilege, for to do so even passive-ly is equivalent to active oppression. To be druggedby the comforts of privilege is to contribute toinjustice as silent beneficiaries of its fruits.• Third, an attitude not simply of refusal but ofcounterattack against injustice; a decision to workwith others toward the dismantling of unjustsocial structures so that the weak, the oppressed,the marginalized of this world may be set free.Jesuit values and business operations need not be atodds. What makes the above cases remarkable is theresponse of the respective administrations. AtGeorgetown, the administration worked quickly withvarious stakeholders to develop and implement a justemployment policy, which sets guidelines on issues likewages, benefits, and organizing rights for contractemployers. At Loyola, a task force created by the presi-dent spent a year to research and create a similar policy.Both schools have advisory committees that now ensurethat the policies are followed.Similar issues exist around our endowments.Currently, students at hundreds of colleges and universi-ties–several of our Jesuit schools among them–are callingfor divestment of endowments from fossil fuels. Others,following the Move Our Money campaign, are calling onour schools to invest in their local communities. Again, several of our schools have developed con-structive ways forward. Loyola Chicago has an activeshareholder advocacy committee, which engages thecompanies LUC is invested in on human rights and envi-ronmental issues. And Fordham recently made aJust Employment andInvestment PoliciesAn Idea Whose Time Has ComeBy Josh DalyJosh Daly serves as the interim director of the Centerfor Community Engagement at Loyola University inNew Orleans. 1Josh: Just Employment and Investment Policies: An Idea Whose Time Has CPublished by e-Publications@Marquette, 201314 ConversationsFinancial Aid: NeedBased or Merit Based?Towards a Just PolicyBy Jeff von Arx, S.J.We are all aware that St. Ignatiuswished Jesuits not to charge fortheir ministries, including theministry of education, so thatstudents would be admitted toour colleges regardless of theirability to pay. He expected us to beg for the support ofour works! This proved to be impractical in the long run,but the contributed services of Jesuits, who constitutedthe majority of faculty in our schools for most of Jesuithistory, meant that fees were low, even when they werecharged. Here in the United States, our colleges werefounded in the interest of a mostly urban, immigrantpopulation who could not afford the fees that most pri-vate institutions charged, and even these modest feeswere often waived for students who could not pay themin an informal economy of financial aid administered bythe Jesuits.As our institutions changed, and especially as wehired more lay faculty and staff who had to be paid a liv-ing wage, tuitions rose and financial aid became moreformalized. Today, a few of our institutions are in thefortunate position to honor a commitment not only toneed-blind admission but also to meeting fully thedemonstrated financial need of all the students theyadmit. They do this typically with the help of largeendowments. But I do not mean to minimize the strug-gle it is even for these institutions to meet this commit-ment, especially in the current economic climate. For the rest of us, who cannot meet full financialneed, we have traditionally tried to make as much need-based financial aid available as we could. There havebeen some exceptions to this practice, most notably ath-letic grants-in-aid, which are awarded irrespective ofneed (although, of course, many athletes have need),and merit scholarship programs to attract the very beststudents (presidential scholars, etc.). But a commitmentto awarding most financial aid on the basis of need hasJeffrey von Arx, S.J., is the president of FairfieldUniversity, Connecticut.$250,000 investment in a local credit union–money thatwill support small businesses and local homeowners,among others–in response to a student campaign called“Fordham for the Bronx.”As anchor institutions in our communities, Jesuitschools have considerable power to respond to Arrupe’scall to build more just social structures. In Cleveland,Case Western Reserve has joined the Cleveland Clinicand University Hospitals in leveraging their purchasingpower to incubate the Evergreen Cooperatives: employ-ee-owned businesses providing commercial solar, laun-dry, and greenhouse food production services and build-ing good jobs and real wealth for residents of nearbyneighborhoods whose median income is $18,000 peryear. What if Jesuit schools helped incubate similar ini-tiatives in our communities?We have an opportunity–at the invitation of our cur-rent Jesuit superior Fr. Adolfo Nicolás–to creatively reimag-ine the founding of our Jesuit universities and how we canembody our values in present realities. On business prac-tices, two emerging networks of faculty, staff, and studentsare engaging in this creative process: the Jesuit JustEmployment Project (http://lwp.georgetown.edu/campus-project/jesuit-just-employment-policy-initiative/) and theJesuit Endowment Ethics Network (full disclosure: I belongto both). Both groups have been gathering stories of prom-ising practices like those mentioned above and have beendeveloping model policies and tools. I urge my colleaguesacross the family of Jesuit institutions to find out more andto join in this important work to raise our practices to thelevel of our ideals. ■2Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, Vol. 44, Iss. 1 [2013], Art. 7http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol44/iss1/7

Just Employment and Investment Policies: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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Just Employment and Investment Policies: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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