Though University officials have said it is not currently invested in any coal companies, the Illinois Student Senate is looking for a promise for the future.

At its next Wednesday meeting, the senate will consider a resolution that proposes that the University never invest in coal and make all of its investments available to the public.

Felicia Speranske, chairwoman of the ISS subcommittee on environmental sustainability and senior in ACES, wrote the resolution and said that as far as she knows, the fact that the University is not currently invested in coal is not a conscious decision.

“Although right now (the University) is not invested, they haven’t made a statement saying in the future they won’t be invested in coal,” she said.

University spokesman Tom Hardy confirmed in an email that the University’s active endowment pool does not currently have any direct investments in coal companies.

The idea for the resolution originated in the University chapter of the Sierra Club’s “Campuses Beyond Coal” campaign. The campaign encourages college students to urge their universities to stop investing in coal. Speranske said that in 2008 the group made strides when the University agreed to the Illinois Climate Action Plan in which the University committed to eliminating the use of coal by 2017.

Speranske said she thinks investing in coal companies would be counteractive to the University’s goal of eliminating coal usage.

“I think when students enroll, they don’t know what they are invested in,” she said. “There’s a huge health problem with coal, and investing in it is supporting all the impacts of burning coal.”

Anastasia Schemkes, associate campaign representative from Sierra Student Coalition, helps 40 colleges across the country, including the University, retire coal plants and eliminate investment in coal.

“We are asking the University to play its leadership role and have its financial officers align their investments with socially responsible and sustainable ethics,” she said.

Tyler Rotche, project director of UI’s Beyond Coal campaign and sophomore in LAS, said members of the Beyond Coal Campaign have met with Mike Bass, senior associate vice president of the Office of Business and Financial Services and deputy comptroller, several times to work on transparency measures concerning the issue.

“We talked about where we can go from here, and (Bass) is going to run it by the financial analysts and others who work with investments,” Rotche said. “The questions of policy implementation are undefined for where the final line of approval lies.”

Despite repeated attempts, Bass could not be reached for comment.

The postponed resolution will be presented for action at the Illinois Student Senate meeting Dec. 5.

Tyler Davis contributed to this report. Corinne can be reached at [email protected].