Saw this article the other day about Harvard University and their endowment manager’s (Harvard Management Co.) decision to join the global group known as Principles for Responsible Investment. This decision seems to be a pinnacle choice going forward in terms of the precedent it may set for university endowments to partake in socially and environmentally responsible initiatives. What I found interesting about what this article did not say is that last year, students petitioned to have HMC divest itself of some of its energy holdings as a means of being more “responsible.” Whether this decision to join PRI was a direct result of that student action may never be known, but it certainly raises an interesting issue going forward in terms of how universities choose to invest.