Professor’s feedback on “responsible investments”

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SFU admin is throwing money at a globe. There are pumpjacks on the globe that represent fossil fuel extraction.
ILLUSTRATION: Sonya Janeshewski / The Peak

By: Professor No Nonsense

Dear Simon, 

Thank you for submitting your assignment about your investment approach. In my most recent therapy session, my therapist encouraged me to start practicing radical honesty. So, I’m starting right now. Your submission is bad . . . no, terrible. At multiple points while reading it, I took a break to mourn the time I was losing. For an assignment you avoided since last fall, you’re lucky to be getting feedback. Here is an in-depth breakdown of everything wrong with it. Regardless of whether or not you read this (I know you won’t), it was incredibly cathartic to write. 

1. No understanding of the topicThis assignment is about “responsible investments,” but it includes no definition of this concept. Could this be because you don’t know what it means? You claim to be a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment because you support incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance considerations into your investment decisions, but you proceed to make up every excuse under the sun to avoid being held accountable. Were you unaware that signing would force you to reveal to the world what you believe is or is not an important environmental or social cause? Seems like a lack of foresight to me. . . 2. Bad analysis and even worse argumentation

You claim that divesting from fossil fuels has yielded “mixed results.” What led you to this asinine conclusion? To continue, you write “divestment can have financial implications” blablabla . . . At the university level, I expect much more sophisticated and thoughtful work. What made you believe that making a deeply obvious statement that could only be outdone by announcing that the sky is blue and the earth is round could possibly lead to a passing grade? 

And then, (I know this section is long, it’s just that you submitted incredibly subpar work) you say, “divestment from specific causes may conflict with our responsibility under the University Act to remain ‘non-sectarian and non-political in principle.’” This isn’t a starving artist’s screenplay, it doesn’t need a plot twist. Why after hundreds of words of you rambling about your values would you then reveal that you’re not allowed to have any?  

3. If you weren’t going to give me clarity, you could’ve at least given me concision 

I saw online that it’s hip now to write tl;drs because the youth “ain’t reading all that” and I truly believe this is a phenomenal tool you should incorporate in your future work. In order to clarify what I mean, an example of a good tl;dr for this submission would be: “I want to continue to virtue signalling and calling myself a leader in yet another made-up sector while making unethical investment decisions because it is profitable without anyone calling me out on it because it is deeply annoying to me.” 

Normally, this would be the point where I would encourage you to come to my office hours, but I fear you may be too far gone. When the environment and people’s lives are on the line, taking your sweet time to schedule community consultations is irresponsible. 

Don’t ask me to regrade your work. 
Professor No Nonsense

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