I very much respect the opinions of those who have questioned why other students and I, journalists or not, feel the need the harangue, harass and generally heckle Cambridge University and its colleges.

Cornered in Fez, the not-quite-sure-what-it's-for aisle in Sainsbury’s and the Maypole toilets, I have endured around four minutes of, ‘They’re not so bad’, ‘You’re biting the hand that feeds’ and even ‘You don’t know anything.’

Charmed as I am by attempts to put me in my place, whilst I am taking a rare opportunity to enjoy myself, I have failed every time to answer these points. Instead pint-spluttering, cigarette-dropping, hand-waving lamentations were about all I could manage. Given my inept responses, I would like to take this opportunity to respond properly.

This week Varsity revealed the University’s close link formed with Uzbekistani academics, who have next to no academic freedom, in order to obtain government funding. The University insists the project is ‘entirely academic’; you cannot become a prominent Uzbekistani academic if you are a known oppositionist. The University cannot therefore profess to take an apolitical stance.

The week before this, term began with the first in a series of installments examining University and college investment practice. I would like to inform you of the response across the University in order to provide, as best I can, the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate (Maypole Toilet) Question.

A number of bursars have been in touch with their Ethical Investment contact in CUSU. Their response was not the hostility we had expected. It involved a degree of respect for the points students have made, and also a concern for potential reputational damage. This is of course rhetoric and not action, and so must be viewed skeptically. It should nevertheless be welcomed.

Even more revealing was this week’s announcement that the University of Cambridge will collaborate with leading investment firms, to explore and promote sustainable investment. The Judge Business School will work with the Investment Leaders Group (ILG) on a three-year project examining how investors can combine maximum returns with ethical considerations – the crux of the investment issue. The University should be applauded for this step.

This is why I don’t give it up. I believe that where our University and colleges put their money, matters. I also happen to think that as students, with a bit of hard work, we can have quite a say in how our institution is run. 

And I am not alone; this week Pembroke JCR passed a motion calling for the college to devise a ‘formal, transparent responsible and ethical investment policy.’ Similar movements are likely to take place elsewhere, in Trinity Hall for example. Equally, The Oxford Student have been in touch, enquiring into the format of the Freedom of Information requests we used to obtain details of college investments. Their job is made easier by the fact that Oxford, unlike Cambridge, already has an ethical investment policy, which their investments can be measured against.

There’s another reason why I bother. When you or I read a piece of journalism in a national newspaper, we are quite divorced from the writer. We live in different places, have probably never met them and may not even have heard of them. Student journalism is different. Cambridge is a very small world, and whether or not I know you, we live, sleep, eat, and drink in the same place. Therefore the relationship between reader and writer is much closer. Whether or not you agree with a particular campaign or article, it is informing you about, and commenting on, an institution we are both part of.

Is it therefore hypocritical to receive an invaluable education from an institution, whilst publicly criticising it? I think not. Those inside Cambridge are uniquely poised to understand it and gain information about how it runs. If about ten of us hadn’t spent the latter part of our summer trawling through college investment portfolios, it would not have been done.

You have more power than you perhaps realise. You do not have to be an expert to care about something or to call for action; I certainly do not proclaim to be. One good friend of mine, at Trinity, strongly felt that Trinity students ought to demand that the college use its investments to encourage various companies to behave better. She did not feel it was fair to ask Trinity to sell its shares; instead she wanted Trinity to engage more with company CEOs. She, like me, has no background in investments whatsoever. I urge you, if you feel strongly about this, or any other complex issue, not ‘to give it a break.