Proposal to Amend Bylaws - 2010 Senate Meeting

Bernice Brody, Speaker of the SenateHelen Patricia, Deputy Speaker of the Senate

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Society Bylaws Amendment Process

We are currently

at this stage.

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• Scope of Notice• During the meeting, amendments to the

amendments can be made from the floor as long as they are within scope, aka wording falls in between existing bylaws and text of the motion as posted at 45 day notice.

• Amendments to amendments are voted on first as a sub-element before the entire motion can be voted on.

Key Parliamentary Procedures re Bylaws

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Amendments for November 6 Meeting

• There are ten motions before the senate which are proposed amendments to the Society bylaws.

• There will also be one motion to amend the Senate Procedure.

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Member voting rights

S1101Clarify “all rights of membership” especially for associate

members in relation to the wording of other member grades. No content change, just re-wording.

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S1102

The COR governance task force recommended that region council structures be consistent across regions and the structure used by most regions was added to the Society bylaws two years ago. This amendment would give back to the regions the option to allow the officers to be voting members of region councils.

PRO

When this article was placed in the Society bylaws, it took the option away from the regions to determine the voting composition of their region council. In Region A, the entire region (not just the council) votes for all four officers. Consistent with that, the lieutenant governor, secretary and treasurer in Region A previously had a vote on the region council. The change took away rights the members of Region A previously had, namely to determine if these three officers could vote.

CON

Allowing different structures detracts from members having consistent SWE experiences across regions. The change made two years ago ensured consistency for all region councils, and no objections were raised at that time. While region governors are elected on the Society ballot, the other officers in all regions except Region A are elected by the region councils. If officers are permitted to vote, one section could have a disproportionate voice in region decisions, including election of the other officers.

Note: all regions would have to update their region bylaws if this passes.

Region Officers Voting on Region Council

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Collegiate Candidates for Officer Positions

S1103, S1104, and S1105Allows collegiate members to be considered for elected region/professional section/MAL positions if they will be a member of that subordinate unit and will qualify for professional membership before July 1. This includes most collegiates in graduate school, since most qualify for professional membership even if they hold the collegiate member grade. It also includes collegiates who expect to receive bachelor engineering or engineering-related degrees before July 1 and transition to professional membership or proceed directly to graduate school and continue as collegiate members.

Collegiates will not be able to run for region governor or professional section/MAL president (as well as lieutenant governor and in most cases, vice president).

Collegiates interested in being considered would need to contact the subordinate unit and present their qualifications during that unit’s nominating process, and it would be up to each unit whether or not such collegiates may be candidates.

Many collegiate members have been actively involved in their collegiate sections and regions and want to continue their involvement. This amendment provides another avenue for them to contribute immediately after graduation and helps the subordinate units that have trouble finding candidates.

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Collegiate Director Position on Board of Directors

S1106Make the temporary collegiate board rep into a permanent and full voting member of the board. Duties, election/appointment, and eligibility to remain as currently is for collegiate rep. It’s a 1 year term.

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Disbanding a Committee by the Board of Directors

S1107

At present, the board of directors may establish and disband committees (other than the standing committees specified in the bylaws) at will. This amendment would require the board to give a committee it is considering disbanding the opportunity to be heard.

The bylaws committee is recommending against this amendment. They believe that this should be documented in the board procedure. The board is working on an amendment to their procedure.

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Senate Speaker Eligibility

S1108

The intent of this motion is to broaden the acceptable pool of candidates for consideration for speaker and deputy speaker. As proposed, the list of experiences mirrors that which is currently stated for eligibility requirements of the board of directors (assuming the adoption of proposal S1109 passes).

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Board Eligibility

S1109

Senate committees are not technically the same as Society committees since they are established by the senate and not by the board of directors so those don’t count towards eligibility on the board.

This proposal would add senate committee chairs to the eligibility list for board of directors positions.

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SWE Code of Conduct

S1110During FY10 the board of directors and senate approved a code of conduct package. This motion adds it to the bylaws.

Note1: since the code of conduct affects all SWE members and the senate represents all SWE members, the senate would need to approve any revisions of the code.Note2: The document currently titled “oath of office” will need to be revised to be a “code of service.”Note3: since there is another motion this season affecting that same paragraph, if both should pass the wording of this motion would come second.

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Senate Procedure UpdateS1111The intent of the changes are:

- Update what materials are provided to new senators and clarify who provides these materials. Much of our templates and such are included in the communications document, so we've referred to that where appropriate.

- Provide additional direction of Senator roles

- Provide a provision for regions with alternates who have a vacancy in the alternate role can elect another alternate to complete the term. (We have one region where the alternate left the area and so now they don't have an alternate)

- Provide direction on how to submit a motion

- Provide a time for when we should submit financial motions to the finance committee for review. (we chose 3 weeks)

- We identify the "standing committees" for the senate and what are their

roles/responsibilities. - We added the annual "speaker will notify the society nominating committee to handle and act as the senate nominating committee" -- so we don't need a motion each year.

- Added links to key documents not in the senate communications document.