Entries in On Campus by Ibby Caputo

New England Colleges at Forefront of Fossil Fuel Divestiture Movement

Ibby Caputo

June 03, 2013

higher ed, new business models, university, fossil fuel, technology and innovation

Harvard University students protested the school's investments in oil companies in April.

It’s been a contentious year at colleges nationwide, with students mounting campaigns on more than 300 campuses.

At issue: Should colleges and universities keep investing their endowments in fossil fuel companies?

Out of the 300 campuses with divestment campaigns, only five schools have actually committed to divesting their endowments from fossil fuels, and they are all in New England.

About Ibby Caputo

Ibby Caputo joined the WGBH newsroom as a reporter in November 2011 and covers a wide variety of topics including public health, the arts and innovation. After graduating from college, Ibby moved to New Orleans to write fiction. While there, she fell in love with music, dancing and the city’s vibrant culture. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Ibby evacuated to Mississippi where she realized how quickly life can be washed away. She felt an urgency to shift her focus from writing fiction to telling true, important stories. Thus began her career as a journalist. Ibby travels extensively throughout the world, exploring the universal elements of humanity that exist regardless of social class, economic status, nationality, religion and culture. Before coming to WGBH, Ibby worked as a freelance producer for WBUR’s special documentary unit Inside Out, and for On Point with Tom Ashbrook. In 2009, Ibby was the recipient of the Kaiser Family Foundation Media Summer Fellowship and worked as a health reporter for The Washington Post. Ibby received her B.A. from Princeton University and an M.S. from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.