January Council Coverage |
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February 4, 2014, Volume 60, No. 21 |
Last Wednesday, at the first Council meeting of the spring semester, in addition to a presentation on the year’s second focus issue—campus safety and emergency procedures—there was a discussion of a Proposal to Adopt a Policy Excluding Investments in Tobacco Companies. This proposal for Penn to divest from stocks in tobacco companies was submitted by a group of Penn faculty, staff, students and alumni, and approved by the Council Steering Committee for discussion at Council. Council heard from faculty experts in support of, and in opposition to, the proposal and Council members had time to question the panel and discuss the proposal’s merits.
At the February 19th meeting, Council members will vote in an advisory capacity to President Amy Gutmann, either for or against the proposal. The decision to hold the vote in February, rather than on January 29th, was made by Steering so that Council members would have an opportunity to get input from their constituencies on the various points of view presented during the panel and cast their votes accordingly. To ascertain who your representative to Council is, see the list of Council members in Almanac October 29, 2013.
President Gutmann will then advise Trustee Chairman David Cohen of the “sense of Council” regarding the tobacco divestment proposal. The responsibility for all decision-making relating to the management of Penn’s endowment has been and remains a fiduciary responsibility of the Trustees. Responsibility for investment and divestment has always rested solely with the Trustees.
Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush began the presentation on campus safety and emergency procedures by describing the component parts of the division: 116 Penn police officers; security services (AlliedBarton); emergency communications (PennComm); security technology: CCTV, emergency phones; fire & emergency services; and special services. She then explained Penn’s Crisis Management Plan which includes prevention, response and recovery, with various teams involved at different stages. The UPennAlert can send 53,000 text messages in six minutes. She encouraged everyone to program the Penn Police number—(215) 573-3333—into their cell phones and to register on the DPS website for the UPennAlert, Penn Guardian and the International SOS System.
Deputy Chief of Police Mike Fink explained that Penn has been training officers to confront active shooters and has had an emergency response team since 1998. Penn’s new canine unit has now completed training to detect a variety of explosives. He encouraged the members of the Penn community to view a nine-minute presentation at www.publicsafety.upenn.edu/media/videos-and-media-2/
Related: University Council Open Forum |