School Will Divest of All Companies Doing Business in South Africa
Wheaton College, in Norton, Mass., will divest of all holdings in companies doing business in South Africa by the end of 1988, the chairman of the college's Board of Trustees announced last Saturday.
At an October 24 board meeting, Chairman Winston R. Hindle announced that Wheaton be selling just under $2 million of its $37.2 million porttolio over the next 14 months.
The college will advise its financial managers to sell the stocks, worth 6.4 percent of Wheaton's endowment, and reinvest the money so that the school does not suffer a net loss in its portfolio, said Vice President of Finance and Operations Donald Scott. For sale are stocks in seven or eight companies, including DuPont, Hewlett-Packard, ControlData, and Tenneco, Scott said.
For the past three years, Wheaton has monitored its South African investments in accordance with the Sullivan principles, Scott said.
But after the originator of the standards, Leon H. Sullivan of Philadelphia, announced last May that his principles had failed to bring about significant policy changes in the apartheid nation and encouraged total divestment, Wheaton re-evaluated its stand on divestment, Scott said.
Hindle said the college's action "represents an expression of social conscience...over the repressive nature of apartheid in South Africa." COLUMBIA
School Will Earn Big Bucks by Letting Company Use Methods Developed by Prof
Columbia University expects to earn millions of dollars by licensing a corporation to use genetic engineering methods developed by a professor at the school's College of Physicians and Surgeons, The Columbia Spectator reported last week.
Genentech, Inc. will use a Columbia-patented method developed by Professor of Biochemistry and Pathology Richard Axel and colleagues to develop a drug that could help sufferers of heart attacks, The Spectator reported.
The drug, called tissue plasminogen activator, dissolves blood clots that cause heart attacks, said Vice Provost Kathleen Mullinix.
Mullinix refused to state the exact amounts the university and the researchers would receive for the license. She said, however, that Genentech had made an immediate cash payment for the right to use the drug, and would also pay royalty fees.
Industry experts estimate that the drug will produce sales between $300 million and $1 billion annually.