One of the major talking points of the proponents of the package of constitutional amendments which are the subject of the pending ratification referendum is that the proposed changes were under discussion for nine months before they were finally put to a vote. But that assertion is highly misleading.
It is true that the proposal to cut chapter representation on the Alumni Board down to three members, selected by an independent committee of all chapters, was first put forward at an Alumni Board meeting in September 2016, and was not finally adopted until the Alumni Board meeting on June 9, 2017. But the actual text of what was adopted was presented much later than that. This happened because, at the April Board meeting, Alumni Board president announced that any proposed changes that were to be put up for a vote in June had to be provided no later than May 6, 2017, to a “working group” that was supposed to engage in a back-and-forth the proponents of any change to ensure their technical sufficiency. The “working group” was then supposed to provide the final proposals to the full Alumni Board at least a a week before the final board meeting at which the proposals would be put to a vote. This so-called working group was in fact a group of proponents of the leadership’s proposal, and there was no back and forth between that group and the author of the chapter leaders’ counterproposal. It was only in the small hours of Sunday June 3 that the final proposals were distributed, in advance of the voting on Saturday June 9.
That left little time to analyze the new package of amendments, and not nearly enough time was allotted for discussion at the Alumni Board meeting, which had to end promptly so that Board members could get to the panel discussion celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Multicultural Resource Center. Bill Nicholson’s post is particularly telling on the limitation of discussion, and the impatience of the Alumni Board majority take the vote as soon as possible.
Major Differences
And the leadership’s proposal (dubbed the “past presidents” proposal), was very significantly different from the proposed changes that were put forward in September 2016. Instead of the chapters committee being able to select three representatives which would, simply by virtue of that selection, become members of the alumni board, under the new procedure, chapter representatives were to be subject to the following Rube Goldberg-esq procedure: the chapters committee (now renamed a chapter steering organization) nominate three chapter directors by November 15, for a one-year term beginning the following July (with a maximum of three one-year terms). These nominations are due at the same time as the five at-large directors, nominated for three-year terms beginning the next July (with no limit to the number of terms), and the executive committee members, also for terms beginning in July and also with no limit to the number of terms.
After November 15, all alums get the chance to run against the nominees, whether nominees fo at-large director positions, the executive committee positions, OR the chapter director positions. Even if there is no opposition candidate nominated, the terms of the nominees begins only the following July. If there is a contested election for any of the positions, then balloting occurs among all alums (whether or not they are in chapters – that is, all alums get to vote even on the chapter directors). BUT..... no matter whether it is the chapters organization nominee or some other candidate that wins the election for chapters director, the chapters committee gets the final say on which candidate would actually serve the one-year terms as chapters director.
There has never been any explanation for why, given that the chapters organization gets the final say on who serves as chapter director for a one-year term beginning the following July, the nominees selected by the chapters organization have to stand for election in the first place, or for that matter why the chapters organization nominees should have to wait until the following July to begin to serve.
Another change in the language was that, for the first time, there was a limitation set on the number of terms that could be served by a representative of the chapters. The claim was that all directors would have term limits, but this claim was false.
Consequence of the Change
The new procedure for selecting the three chapter representatives had some serious consequences that were not noticed at the time. The most serious one is what some of us have dubbed “the transition problem” – the fact, now admitted by the amendments’ proponents, that once the existing chapter representatives are removed by the passage of the amendments, no new chapter representatives can be added to the Alumni Board until July 2020.
Moreover, the changed procedure does not provide an effective way of dealing with possible vacancies. Under the existing constitution, if a representative of one of the chapters resigns, the chapter can simply designated a replacement. But under the amendments, if adopted, it is the president of the Alumni Board who gets to fill the vacancy; the amendments do not commit this vacancy to someone selected by the chapters organization,
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