Rules Amendments to Remove Article on Representatives – 2013

Amendments approved by membership votes certified 18 December 2013.

In 2011 SOR President Jeff Giacomin appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Constitutional Reform to examine the SOR Constitution and Rules with an eye to correcting the sections that refer to the relationship between the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the Society of Rheology. Charing this Committee was Gerald Fuller and he was joined by Norman Wagner and Randy Ewoldt.

In the current Rules, Article VI is entitled “Representatives” and the three sections therein dictate that the President of the Society should appoint the appropriaterepresentatives to the AIP Governing Board and to any other bodies in which SOR is granted representation.

The structure of AIP has changed, and it is no longer the case (if it ever was the case) for SOR to be “represented” on the AIP board. Instead, SOR is entitled to “elect” a member of that board. The difference in this language is that the SOR-designated AIP board member does not “represent” SOR; rather that individual’s responsibility is to AIP as a governing board member.

The committee considered various language changes to Article VI of the Rules, but after discussion with the SOR Executive Committee, the decision was taken by the Executive Committee to propose to strike Article VI of the Rules entirely, and renumber the remaining Articles appropriately. The selection of designees to bodies outside of the SOR is adequately described within the remaining Rules of the Constitution, which shall be retained.

The Ad Hoc Committee on Constitutional Reform endorses this change and considers itself discharged. The procedure for amending the SOR Rules requires a vote of the membership, and this is the ballot that faces SOR members now.

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