Students organize walkout during Exxon-Mobil recruiting seminar

During an Exxon-Mobil recruiting seminar in the Geology building on Thursday a group of students organized a walkout to demonstrate their dislike for the company.

The walkout was arranged by a number of environmental advocacy groups on campus, but most of the students involved were concerned outsiders. The students involved cite a number of reasons for their protest of the Exxon-Mobil recruiters, chief among them being that Exxon is one of the largest sponsors of lobbyists who push against climate science research and legislation, in addition to being the world’s largest producer of petroleum. Additionally, several students stated Exxon discriminates against LGBTQA workers.

“I thought it was what we could do to voice our opinions,” said junior Diago Mendiola. “We don’t have a lot of opportunities to voice our opinions, and this was a chance for us to express our grievances.”

The event was part of a job and internship opportunity program in the geology department and was a chance for students to learn about the benefits of working at a company like Exxon and what kind of path they could expect their careers to take if they were to get a job there.

The speakers, Shane Long and Eric Wickham, are both geologists at Exxon who have worked numerous job sites around the world in addition to speaking at recruiting seminars like the one on Thursday.

During the seminar, when the speakers paused to allow for questions, the activists asked questions about the company’s sustainability and diversity practices and job security.

Several of the professors from the geology department asked that the students, for the sake of time, only ask questions related to the job opportunities, but the students didn’t stop.

At the end of the presentation, the speakers had an open question round to clarify any of the points they made in their presentation. At that time, about half the audience stood up, declared that they would never work for a company like Exxon-Mobil and walked out of the room, leaving in each of their seats a piece of paper explaining their grievances against the oil giant.

“While these are important questions that need to be asked, this is not the right venue for it,” the recruiters said, “and we neither know the answers to their questions, nor are we in a position to speak for Exxon-Mobil about these issues.”

Members of the geology department expressed their embarrassment over the behavior of these audience members, with one student even apologizing on behalf of the school, saying that this behavior was not representative of the culture of Utah State.

Geology graduate student Amy, who declined to give her last name, has been involved with similar programs from other companies, and she stressed the importance of why job programs like this are important for students.

“Seminars like these turn into real opportunities for students to get jobs and make a career and learn about the environment of the job market,” she said.

Many of the geological surveying trips she had participated in as a student had been sponsored by Exxon, she said.

Student activist senior Chris Tonan said it didn’t matter if the recruiting seminar was the proper venue or not. These issues needed to be discussed even if it was inconvenient or awkward.

“There’s not a correct time for civil disobedience,” Tonan said. “As students, we should be active in who we let onto our school.”

Exxon said concerned students can check out Exxon’s website corporate.exxonmobil.com for specific information about the companies stance on the environment and its global operations, diversity and energy efficiency.

—austinlabonty@gmail.com

@dr11235