University Chief Investment Officer Don Lindsey appeared on the CNBC show “Squawk on the Street” Friday to discuss GW’s investment strategies during the economic downturn.

Lindsey told host Mark Haines that the University has begun taking money from the equity markets and investing in high-grade corporate bonds.

“At this point, without a very strong catalyst to push equity prices higher, it really makes sense to get the high current income [from corporate bonds] and wait,” he said.

An allocation chart showed that the University had 5 percent of its endowment in investment-grade corporate bonds at the end of January, an area in which it had nothing invested at the end of December.

Although many investments are based on long-term strategies, Lindsey said that market fluctuations mean that changes have to made regularly.

“It’s a market where you have to be willing to make tactical adjustments on a short-term basis.”

GW’s endowment lost 22 percent of its value in 2008, but Lindsey maintained that the endowment losses would not affect overall spending.

“One thing that’s very significant for us is that the endowment does not provide a substantial portion of our operating budget,” he said. “There are other universities where the endowment provides a significant amount of the operating budget; that coupled with illiquid strategies presents some real hardships. ”

The four-minute clip can be viewed on CNBC’s website here.