UAZDIVEST

Sanghi is majoring in computer science and minoring in future earth resilience, a new minor at the UA. He’s also a member of UArizona Divest, a campus club working to convince the UA Foundation to complete a phased divestment from fossil fuels by 2029. The group is also hoping to get a public commitment from the foundation to make no further investments in the fossil fuel industry.
As of 2019, the foundation had $64 million invested in fossil fuels, according to the group.
“We had a rally on the mall last year that got a lot of attention publicly,” Sanghi said. “We’re in the trenches, working hard.”
While UArizona Divest is still growing its community, AZYCC has formed some significant alliances with local officials and state lawmakers. Last summer, Tucson City Councilman Kevin Dahl offered up his ward office as a meeting space for the group.
Sanghi is hoping that the group continues to grow, saying that the barrier to entry is very low.

UArizona Divest, a student-led movement at the University of Arizona dedicated to ending the university’s investment in fossil fuels, is hoping to amplify efforts towards this goal in the spring by partnering with students, faculty and the greater Tucson community. Now, the organization is instead focusing efforts on establishing and strengthening connections with students, faculty and the surrounding Tucson community rather than continuing discussions with the Foundation.

At an epicenter of the country’s water crisis, some University of Arizona students are calling on the UA Foundation to take a firm stance against climate change and pull the $82 million it has in fossil fuel-related investments by 2029.

“While we know that the foundation has been supported by money made from fossil fuels, we want to show them that Arizona, Tucson, the U of A — its students and alumni — are in support of renewable energy,” said Samantha Wetherell, president of UAZ Divest, the student-led group calling on the UA Foundation to divest. “We are going to push for sustainability and we want to see the U of A put its money where its mouth is in terms of its sustainable initiatives.”

Samantha Wetherell is trying to push people in power to put out the flames. 

“We’ve all grown up hearing every single day of our lives that the world is burning,” Samantha says. “And we’ve witnessed time and time again a lot of the people in power or a lot of institutions around us fail to address it.”

Samantha and a few dozen others gathered at the central mall on the University of Arizona campus on a scorchingly sunny September afternoon. They brought bullhorns and signs and walked a circuit shouting slogans to underscore the urgency of climate change — and what they see as the university’s heel-dragging and hypocritical response.

On August 23rd, 2022, UArizona Divest, a student-led fossil fuel divestment campaign, met for the fourth time with the UArizona Foundation’s CEO JP Roczniak and UArizona CFO Lisa Rulney regarding UArizona Divest’s requests. The UArizona Foundation is a non-profit institution that serves as the governing body and investment committee for the University of Arizona’s billion-dollar endowment. The Arizona Foundation currently has $64 million invested in private equity in the oil industry.

This week, UAZ DIVEST, a student-led organization working to discontinue the University of Arizona’s investment in fossil fuels, has taken a step forward in their mission by scheduling their first meeting with the University of Arizona Foundation.

The meeting will take place on April 19.

The UA Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose “services include managing the university’s donated assets and processing gifts to the university in accordance with the UA’s guidelines and policies,” according to the foundation’s mission statement. The upcoming meeting is the first UAZ DIVEST has managed to get with them.

The Associated Students of the University of Arizona, the university’s undergraduate student governing body, met on Wednesday, Sept. 8, to vote on a resolution calling on the UA to fully divest from the fossil fuel industry.

The meeting was called to order at 7:01 p.m. and adjourned at 7:22 p.m. The Senate gathered in the Madera room of the Student Union Memorial Center and over Zoom.

According to ASUA’s post-meeting minutes, two senators were marked absent during roll call: Louise Lalescu, senator for the College of Science, and Swathi Ramkumar, senator for the College of Engineering.

Student-led organization UAZ Divest is on a mission to discontinue the University of Arizona’s investments in fossil fuels, which as of 2019 amount to over $64 million.

The group emphasizes that the university’s investments in fossil fuels are negatively contributing to the ever-intensifying climate crisis and they demand that the university abandon its current investments in fossil fuels by 2025, as well as pledge to refrain entirely from investing in fossil fuel corporations in the future.