Interim President Lisa Lynch announced at last Wednesday’s town hall forum that the University will not make a decision on whether to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry until after the next University president is selected. She also addressed rumors about the future of Usen Castle, saying that the University will most likely have to take down part of the building, as the renovations required to preserve it for the next 20 years would most likely be prohibitively expensive.

Lynch made two announcements that responded to the University’s sexual assault climate survey, the first wave of results for which was released in October. The University hopes to address the finding that only 38.2 percent of students know where to report an assault with a new flier campaign to spread awareness of the University’s sexual assault services, which is being headed by Interim Vice President for Communications Judy Glasser. Lynch stated that the graduate schools are developing new programs to train graduate students in sexual assault prevention and awareness of University resources.

In an email to the Justice, Glasser said that the University will also be bringing speakers to campus, mounting other photo campaigns to publicize resources and conducting additional trainings. Dean of the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences Eric Chasalow wrote in an email to the Justice that the programs being developed for graduate students are adapted from programs already offered to faculty and undergraduates. “We are working on a combination of online and live training, using the ‘train the trainer’ model as much as possible,” he added. Graduate students with teaching assignments are “the immediate priority” of the new training programs, according to Chasalow, though he noted that he wants all students to eventually go through the programs. Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist Sheila McMahon and Director of Graduate Student Affairs Jessica Basile are leading the development process, according to Chasalow.

Lynch said at the town hall that the University has “made marked improvements in our orientation so that our first-year students and sophomores in particular seem to know much more of what [sexual assault services are] available on campus, but as you get in[to] the juniors and seniors, and certainly for graduate students, there’s not been the same intensity of training in services.” While the data from the climate survey released thus far does not break down by class year how aware students are of campus resources, it does show that on average, fewer graduate students are aware of both confidential and reporting services on campus. She added that the executive council of the faculty senate and the University advisory committee have formed a joint committee to address sexual assault on campus and that the University is part of ongoing conversations with other colleges on the issue.

Lynch then addressed fossil fuel divestment, saying that the next University president will likely be announced in December or January and that “we want to be able to have that president, with the Board of Trustees, jointly make a decision about [divestment]. It is a great way, I think, for the incoming president to engage with the campus community on issues that are near and dear to their hearts.” She then discussed the recently-formed President’s Task Force on Campus Sustainability, which was inspired by the University’s commitment in 2008 to have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015, although the University’s greenhouse gas emissions are now 1 percent higher than when they started, according to Lynch. The task force, co-chaired by students, staff and faculty, will develop short-term, medium and long-term goals for the University to increase its sustainability and efficiency, and it will present these goals to Lynch in January.

Regarding the Castle, Lynch said that both the University’s management team and the Board of Trustees are reviewing the building to determine options for its future. The goal is, according to Lynch, “to find a way that we hopefully will be able to preserve the more iconic parts of the Castle, including where Chum’s is and the big towers in the south-facing part of the castle.” When asked about whether changes to the Castle would force students off campus while the building undergoes construction, Lynch stated that the goal is to actually increase the amount of housing on campus, while Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel clarified that spring 2017 would be the earliest that any student housing would be affected by construction. Flagel and Senior Vice President for Operations Jim Gray are manning two separate teams to review the Castle’s future options, and nothing has been decided yet, according to Flagel.

In the question-and-answer segment of the town hall, two student members of Brandeis Climate Justice, a group that advocates for fossil fuel divestment, demanded that Lynch respond to claims in April that the University would issue an opinion on fossil fuel divestment at the November Board of Trustees meeting. One of the students stated “when the [Exploratory] Committee [on Fossil Fuel] met and convened in April, we were told that we would get a response in the fall. So far, the Board of Trustees has not discussed it.” When asked by the Justice, Saren McCallister ’18, one of the students who spoke, pointed to an April 24 email from Lynch and then-President Frederick Lawrence about the results of the Exploratory Committee on Fossil Fuel Divestment’s research. That email stated that its writers would ask the Board’s investment committee to evaluate the report’s proposals and let the full Board consider them throughout the fall semester. However, at no point did it state that the student body would receive a response in November.

Though she expressed sympathy for the students’ passion toward the issue, Lynch said that because the divestment issue is so important, it should be something the incoming president helps determine. She then said that until sustainability increases on campus, it would be difficult for advocates to show the Board that they are “walking the talk” [sic]. When the students pressed Lynch, saying that actions on campus exist “in a bubble” and that the University would still be profiting from climate change if it did not divest, Lynch cited the University’s reduction in energy usage by about one quarter this summer through its “Turn It Off” days. She said of sustainability: “I am concerned when people say 'well that’s not a meaningful thing,' because it is a very meaningful act.”

Lynch pointed out that the University does not directly invest in fossil fuel corporations but instead runs its investments through managers, so eliminating fossil fuels from the University’s portfolio would require constantly investigating its managers on their investment choices, which change frequently. Lynch assured the students that they would be able to have a meeting with the Board of Trustees, potentially at their January meeting, but added, “You’re not going to constantly be able to go back to the Board on this. I think there’s some additional ways in which we can be doing exactly what you say. … I would do a bit more homework in terms of some of the things that you want to present. And I would encourage you to not make it a best and final offer to the Board.”

Finally Lynch noted, “Right now, the Board is a little bit occupied with the selection of the next president of the University. So that has to be resolved first because that, quite frankly, is their attention as it rightly should be right now. But when that gets done, then you open up an opportunity for discussion with the Board on this issue.”

In response to other questions, Lynch said that the University is continuing to develop a VP for Diversity position and that this is mostly being built with the Provost’s office. “The important thing is that it’s not just that position, it’s the whole reporting structure” that is changing, according to Lynch.

When asked about sustainability, Gray and Lynch expressed that decreasing the University’s carbon footprint requires both institutional changes and individual behavioral changes from students. Gray also stated that the University is working on installing gender-neutral bathrooms in the Library, though he did not respond to requests for clarification by press time.