Greeting FAUWers!
The FAUW Election Committee is passionate about addressing a recurring issue: balanced and inclusive representation of all six faculties on the FAUW Board. At the moment, there is significant Faculty of Arts representation in the group, but no Directors affiliated with the faculties of Environment, Mathematics, or Applied Health Sciences.
Representing the interests of all faculties is vital to a group like the FAUW Board, and to support this approach, the new FAUW Constitution ensures that each faculty has at least one representative on the Board, with additional “At-Large Representatives.” 2016-2017 will be a transition period toward this new representation on the Board.
This month, FAUWers will elect their President (July 2016 to June 2018), as well as one member affiliated with each of the six faculties (July 2016 to June 2018). Current members whose terms end in 2017 will become At-Large Representatives. To support this transition, one of the Board’s current Lecturer members (Heidi Engelhardt) will become the “Lecturers Representative” until the end of her term in June 2017.
The need for this new cycle of elections arose from a lack of informed voices around the table regarding current practices in each of the six faculties. Inevitably, FAUW’s operations were slowed by the need to go outside the Board to find the information we needed regarding a number of issues.
Although elected from each of the six faculties separately, it is understood that the individuals elected in this way will still act in the interests of the membership as a whole, not exclusively the members of their faculty.
We believe that this new approach will foster better representation of our members. This also means that we look forward to your nomination forms!
Your next steps:
- Read the Elections Committee report outlining how the transition to the new Board structure will play out over the next two years.
- Read the Call for Nominations and download the nomination form on the FAUW website.
Note: Only active members of FAUW – those regular and non-regular faculty and professional librarians who have opted in – are eligible to vote and be elected. If you can’t recall whether you’ve opted in, check the bottom of the Call for Nominations announcement in your email.
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