Hampshire College Sells Stock With South African Connections

Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, will sell all its interests in corporations with investments in South Africa.

Rosita Fernandez-Rojo, a student trustee, said yesterday the Hampshire board of trustees, complying with a majority vote in the Finance Committee at Hampshire, formally stated its decision divesting Saturday.

"After divesting of the three stocks under consideration and the reinterpretation of the current policy we stipulate that no securities in any company having operations in South Africa will be purchased," the trustees' statement said.

Hampshire will sell stocks totalling $34,000 in General Electric, FMC Corporation and Ingersoll Rand, the three corporations with interests in South Africa which Hampshire invests in. This represents roughly ten per cent of its total stock holdings, Adelle S. Simmons, president of Hampshire College, said yesterday.

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In 1977 Hampshire sold all its common stocks for $200,000 "as a direct result of student unrest at the time," but has since reinvested the money, Gluckler said yesterday.

Charles Longsworth, who was president of Hampshire in 1977, decided to divest when students occupied the Cole Science Center, locking out all faculty members and administrators to protest Hampshire's South-Africa-related investments, Gluckler said. "We really needed a strong investment policy," he added.

After the sale, Hampshire employed Standish, Ayer and Woods, an investment management firm, to reinvest its money. In summer 1978, the Committee at Hampshire on Investment Responsibility (CHOIR), set up after the demonstration to review all new investments, learned of the South African investments.

"We were surprised and disappointed to learn that we had new holdings in South Africa," Fernandez-Rojo said. "Most students assumed that the board of trustees had voted and decided on this issue before," she added.

CHOIR recommended to the Finance Committee that it sell stocks in the three companies with interests in South Africa, the Finance Committee voted to withdraw the investments.

Arthur H. Parker, vice-president of Standish, Ayer and Wood, suid yesterday, "We were guided by the investment policy of Hampshire College, as we will be in the future."

"By investing in South Africa we're making a political and moral statement, and by divesting we're doing the same." John S. Berman. The student representative to CHOIR, said yesterday. He added that the guidelines in the investment policy presented to Standish, Ayer and Woods were "very vague in 1978."