Colleges and Climate - NYTimes.com Re "The Divestment Brigade" (Business Day, Dec. 5): Students across the country are indeed demanding that their colleges divest from fossil fuels. As your article mentions, this is not the first time. Students have been demanding that their universities change their investment policies since the 1970s on issues like apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan. Students, as is often the case, are showing leadership when administrators have not. Yet endowments should not be students" responsibility alone. It should not be upon them to force the administration to act on each issue. Yes, it is time for our universities to divest from fossil fuels, but they should do much more. It is time for colleges and universities to rethink their endowments. As public-benefit institutions, they and all charitable organizations can proactively evaluate how they invest. They should seek opportunities to invest a part of the trillions necessary to move to a clean energy future, among other positive investments, all while ensuring that their endowments perform well. DAN APFEL Executive Director Responsible Endowments Coalition Ithaca, N.Y., Dec. 6, 2012