Statement of Investment Principles of Connecticut College Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the College, both today and for generations to come. Actions taken by the Board must directly relate to the preservation and advancement of the College’s educational mission to continue to make high-quality liberal arts education available and affordable to a diverse population of future leaders. We believe that our role and mission as a College are to create an environment where there is space for critical expression, but without the College as an institution taking a side in the debate. We do not see the Board’s role to endorse or reject any particular point of view, but rather to put our educational mission into action, allowing students, faculty and other members of our community to openly and safely examine and debate differing points of view.
The Board, with the recommendation of the Investment Committee, invests its endowment to support the College’s educational mission. The primary objectives of managing the endowment are to preserve its real purchasing power while mitigating risk and to provide a stable stream of annual revenues to support the College’s programs. Investment decisions are made with these objectives in mind and are guided by an Investment Policy Statement, which reflects the College’s risk tolerance and long-term return objectives. The College utilizes a variety of investment strategies and asset classes to construct a diversified portfolio that pursues the Board’s stated investment goals. Connecticut College follows the best practices of other college endowments of comparable size in that our investments are typically implemented by external, specialist managers who are chosen for their expertise and whose decisions we oversee, but we do not control their individual investment decisions.
The endowment provides a material source of financial support to the College’s annual operating budget and helps to fund key elements of the budget, including financial aid, operations and faculty and staff salaries and benefits. As a fiduciary, the Board endeavors to manage the endowment considering both the present and future needs of the College, so that current and future students, faculty and staff will benefit from its support.
The Board is committed to managing the endowment in alignment with the College’s policies. Therefore, it is the Board’s position that the College’s endowment is not a vehicle for expressing views on world affairs or any particular issue. The Board will maintain a policy of insulating the endowment from any political or social debate and keep its attention on the pursuit of long-term performance goals.