Important Note - March 2008

Following is an important note from Dr. Marilyn Amey (amey@msu.edu), regarding the list of nominees for the 2008 CSCC elections and the new CSCC Operating Guidelines. Please read the message & review the attached documents closely and contact her directly with any specific concerns or questions.

Dear CSCC Colleagues:

There are two documents on the CSCC website to which I want to draw your attention. Both are going to be important for full participation at the Business Meeting at our upcoming annual conference.

The first is a copy of revised Operating Guidelines that need to be voted on at the meeting. You may recall that, since becoming a project of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, we no longer have By-laws but have Operating Guidelines instead. The particular changes to focus on are those in Article X, Adoption and Revision of the Operating Procedures. Our past By-laws did not have an efficient provision for making changes, which needed to be remedied, and as most members realize, we have discussed for years moving to on-line voting for elections as do other professional associations. Some of the arguments for moving to on-line election voting have been that members are not always present at the Business Meeting in order to cast a vote so that the process is not always seen as accessible to all members; those who are elected are often not able to quickly change their travel arrangements in order to stay over for the first Board Meeting [conference schedule changes have worked to ameliorate this but it would be more helpful to know of the commitment in advance] and there are other strategies that could be used to make the most of this first board meeting for all officers; members do not always have opportunity to thoughtfully consider candidates when the ballot is distributed shortly before we are expected to cast ballots; there are likely other reasons, as well. A prominent argument against voting on-line has been lack of ability to nominate from the floor, thereby potentially diminishing access and equity for potential candidates. These are all important issues to consider prior to the meeting this year so a fruitful discussion can ensue before voting takes place in person at the Business Meeting.

The second document is a Nominations Profile of all the candidates who have been nominated and agreed to serve in the various open positions of the Council. Although we are not voting on-line, the Nominations Committee attempted to follow a process that could be used in the future should on-line election voting be adopted that requires information about any vote be presented 30 days in advance of the vote. These nominations were culled from two open calls posted to the membership through the Newsletter and the CSCC Updates as well as committee member activity; a total of 17 nominations were generated. Again, this represents the list of those who were nominated and were in a position to serve the organization in the capacity for which they were nominated in this coming year. For different reasons, several colleagues were not able to accept the nomination, as is true every year. The list includes those with longstanding connections to CSCC as well as several new(er) faces that present a broader representation of the membership writ large. The Committee opted to present candidate information in a similar format rather than providing complete vita/resumes or extensive biographical information; we hope you find the profiles useful. Please take the time to carefully review the information presented so that you come to the Business Meeting more aware of those colleagues who have agreed to take on leadership roles in the organization if called upon to do so.