Dear Colleagues,
To follow up on the conversation at the Athens conference this summer on the future of OSEAS-Europe, I sent out a message on OSEAS-Europe electronic mail list in July titled "The Future of OSEAS-Europe". In the message I called for discussion on how we wa nt our leadership to be chosen in the future and what we want to do within OSEAS-Europe in general. As background information I also resent my three earlier memorandums relating to the same topic.
On the list itself, there has't been any discussion on the topic. Many of us have been away during the summer. However, I have also heard from some advisers directly that for many people, posting opinions on the list can be rather intimidating. Many also have said that they feel that they don't know enough about the topic to dare to say something about it publicly.
However, quite a bit of discussion on this topic has been taking place among advisers in more personal settings and I have tried to collect the ideas and suggestions that I have heard from advisers for a basis of discussion here. Sometimes it is easier to discuss if there is a concrete proposal to talk about. Thus, I'm proposing one possible structure of OSEAS-Europe here and I hope that that will raise some interest. It is a combination of ideas from many advisers.
For the original idea of a "European Board", I am indebted to my adviser colleague Lynne Lerner of NACEE in the Netherlands who raised the issue well over a year ago. I have thereafter taken the liberty to develop the idea based on feedback that I have re ceived from European advisers and particularly the many ideas presented to me by advisers this summer in the Athens conference. Thus, many of you may find your own ideas and suggestions incorporated into the following proposal.
Up till now, as far as structure is concerned, there has regularly been only the position of the OSEAS-Europe Regional Representative. Additionally, there has been the possibility to appoint sub-regional or functional representatives. To my knowledge, thi s opportunity has been used quite sparingly in Europe. Over the years, there has been, however, at least one appointed Sub-Regional Representative (currently), Electronic Mail Coordinator, Resource Coordinator, and Advising Quarterly Liaisons. Officially, Regional Reps have been appointed by the OSEAS Leadership, and sub-regional and functional reps have been appointed by the regional reps. Overall, the structure has been very light.
Right now, there is the OSEAS-Europe Regional Rep (myself) and the Sub-Regional Rep for Southern Europe (Evelyn Levinson). Our terms will end at the NAFSA conference in May/June 1996. It is time to decide what to do about the successor(s). The following p roposal suggests a way to elect the European Representative to NAFSA but at the same time ALSO create a team of European advisers to act as a democratically elected regional body which can initiate and coordinate regional activities as necessary. So, plea se remember that the following is a proposal only, and you are most welcome to comment any part of it!
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF OSEAS - EUROPE
The description below refers to "OSEAS-Europe". (Since we would not be a separate organization from NAFSA, we would continue to be allowed to use the name "OSEAS-Europe".)
MISSION
The mission of OSEAS-Europe is to promote professional development for European educational advisers within the region and the United States, to enhance networking among educational advisers, and to encourage leadership.
(One of the first tasks of the new Leadership would probably be to think about the mission more carefully and to reformulate it if necessary. This is just to suggest the very general idea of the mission.)
LEADERSHIP
The OSEAS-Europe leadership would consist of 3 Chairs and three other team members, total of six members, who form the OSEAS- Europe Board.
1. Chairs
- The Chair (current chair) - The Past-Chair, and - The Chair-Elect (future chair)
each serving a term of three (3) years total. The three-person cycle is created to allow for continuity in the structure.
A person can be nominated and elected to be the Chair-Elect for one year, during which s/he has the opportunity to participate as a full-powered member of the team but at the same time also prepare herself/himself for the actual Chairship.
After the year as a Chair-Elect the person becomes the Chair and the head of the team for one year. The Chair is the most important position in the leadership and s/he heads the Board.
After that year the Chair becomes the Past-Chair. The idea of having the immediate past-Chair on the Board is not only to ensure transition, but also to ensure the expertise and experience that only an immediate past-Chair can offer. The Past-Chair retain s full voting rights on the Board and it is preferable that s/he will actively participate in the activities of the Board. (However, I have heard that for many advisers, 3 years of active contribution may sound like a very long time, while two years sound more realistic. If so, then the new Board may want to look at the responsibilities of the Past-Chair and see if those could be somewhat less time-consuming than those of the Chair-Elect and the Chair or if there are other ways to deal with the issue.)
An additional task for the Chair relates to representation in NAFSA, i.e. serving as the "OSEAS-Europe Regional Representative". If the current Chair is a NAFSA member (which would be highly preferable), that person would also be proposed to NAFSA to serv e as the OSEAS-Europe Regional Representative to NAFSA (for a list of duties please see Memo 1). If the current Chair is not a NAFSA member, the Board would select from amongst themselves the person to be proposed as the Regional Rep to NAFSA, or the Boar d would create a rule which will dictate who the Rep will be if the current Chair is not eligible because of non-membership in NAFSA or if the Chair for some other reason cannot take on the responsibility.
Because OSEAS-Europe's mission is to promote professional development opportunities for advisers also in the United States, it is important to be able to advocate OSEAS issues within the NAFSA structure, participate in the elections and nominate our own c andidates for various NAFSA positions. The 6 Board members in Europe who have been democratically elected to advance the cause of European advisers would be natural choices also to be nominated for NAFSA positions in the "national" elections and to repres ent OSEAS-Europe in various forums within the NAFSA structure. However, they can do that only if they are full members of NAFSA in good standing. Thus, it would be preferable if the Board members were all NAFSA members.
Chairs are nominated (an adviser may also nominate herself/himself) and elected by voting. I.e. each year a Chair- Elect is elected. If a Chair should resign in the middle of her/his term, the Chair-Elect will move up to be the Chair, and a new Chair-Elec t will be elected. A past-Chair cannot really resign as such in the middle her/his term (as one would logically never elect a "new Past-Chair"!) but the Past-Chair might not be expected to participate quite as actively as the actual Chairs if s/he for som e reason cannot do that.
The above presumes that there is an ongoing cycle of three Chairs. However, as right now there is none, it means that in order to start the structure we would initially have to elect all the Chairs.
There is no officially elected Chair of OSEAS-Europe now, though the Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee has often been referred to as Chair of OSEAS-Europe. Officially, however, there is no Chair now, so there cannot be a Past-Chair starting nex t May/June either. Also, it is not quite logical to elect a new Past-Chair. I would like to propose that the current OSEAS- Europe Regional Representative would serve as the "Past-Rep" in place of the position of the Past-Chair beginning May/June 1996 wit h the purpose of offering as much continuity and information to the new Leadership as possible.
I would also like to propose that both the Chair 1996-97 and the Chair-Elect (who will be the Chair in 1997-98) be elected already this Fall. From next year on the system would then continue as suggested above, and only the Chair-Elect needs to be elected each year.
2. Other leadership team members
The 3 other Board members will be elected for two year terms. Any eligible adviser may be nominated for these positions.
To ensure that the various geographical areas within Europe would be represented on the Board, these three members will represent them so that there will be one team member from each of the following areas:
- ECE (defined here as the area served by the ECE-REAC) - NIS (defined here as the area served by the NIS-REAC) - Western Europe (defined here as "the rest of Europe" and Israel, i.e. those areas which are not served by either ECE-REAC or NIS-REAC.)
ELIGIBILITY FOR LEADERSHIP:
Eligibility requirements for the leadership team (all 6 positions):
- Must be an adviser whose job is to advise students on study and research in the USA. Advising need not be full-time, but it must form a major component of the job description (and the adviser keeps regular statistics of students served).
- All leadership positions are volunteer.
- Nominees for the Chairs should preferably be advisers who have been advising for at least two years and have participated in either the OEATP and/or regional training workshops/conferences. Nominees for the three other Board positions do not have to hav
e any particular number of years of advising experience as long as they are currently employed as advisers.
- Preferably voting members of NAFSA. (See reasons explained above.)
- The leadership team may also invite one or more non-advisers as ex-officio members to the team. Ex-officio members may act as outside volunteer consultants in areas of importance either for longer periods of time or for specific projects. Ex-officio me
mbers are not officially part of the leadership team and they have no voting powers.
- the leadership team members must be willing to devote their time and effort to their OSEAS-Europe tasks. (Depending on the activities involved this may mean a considerable amount of time! It is advisable to first check with one's supervisor on office po
licies concerning this kind of activities, i.e. whether one is allowed to engage in them during working hours, partially during working hours, or whether all OSEAS activities must be done on one's own time. That will help to determine what is realistic in
one's individual situation.)
ELIGIBILITY FOR "MEMBERSHIP":
- There are no membership fees.
- Open membership: Anyone working in Europe as an adviser on study in the U.S., or anyone interested in the issues concerning European advisers on study in the U.S. may consider themselves as "members" of OSEAS-Europe.
FUNCTIONS OF THE BOARD:
- the new Board would immediately start formulating their agenda, decide on a more exact mission, which functions they will undertake, etc. - the Board can also develop/change the structure and election system, create by-laws, and make any developments th ey feel are necessary. (The purpose of this proposal you are reading now is only to get us started, it is by no means intended to offer a perfect and permanent structure. It would be important for the new Board to work on actual by-laws as one of their fi rst things on the agenda.) - while working on the above issues, the Board would be required to take all decisions to the membership at large, before making major decisions that will affect the membership at large. - the Board will cooperate with all relev ant persons, institutions, and organizations when making their agenda (e.g. REACs, NAFSA, ...)
INTERIM PERIOD:
- the term of the new Board would start in May/June 1996. However, the Board to be elected this Fall can start immediately after their election to prepare for their agenda and plan for actions for their upcoming term.
ELECTION PROCEDURES FOR THIS FALL:
Nominations:
- any eligible adviser (see definition above) may nominate another eligible adviser. No nominations should be made, however, without the consent of the nominee.
- an eligible adviser may also nominate herself/himself.
- a person should be nominated for one of three posts:
1. Chair (1 total)
2. Chair-Elect (1 total)
3. Board Member (3 total; one from each geographical area)
- To nominate someone you should send an e-mail message with
1) your name and contact information, 2) the name and contact information of the person you wish to nominate, and 3) the position you wish to nominate the person for. (If the nomination is for a Board Member, please note also the geographical area, i.e. E
CE, NIS or Western Europe)
- send the nomination message to me at
molsa@csc.fi
If I should serve in place of the Past-Chair (as, more exactly, the "Past-Rep") and, thus, would not be running for any of the actual positions on the Board, I would not mind taking care of the nomination announcements and counting votes.
To make sure that all goes in an acceptable manner, however, I would also like to suggest that we have an outside person who monitors the nominations correspondence and counting of votes. I would like to ask our NAFSA Staff Liaison, Linda Callihan, at NAF
SA Central Office in Washington, DC, to be that person. Thus, when you send a nomination message to me, AND eventually when you send your voting message to me, please COPY it to Linda at
lindahc@nafsa.org
She will thus be able to check that
1) all nominations are published, and 2) all votes are counted correctly.
Please note that the idea here is NOT to allow ONLY those people to nominate, vote and participate who are on e-mail. We rely on our mutual solidarity and I trust that advisers who are on e-mail will send information and copies of announcements and any ot her relevant correspondence to those near-by colleagues who are not yet on e-mail! Those with no e-mail can, of course, also nominate and vote by fax.
- All nominations should be sent in by November 30, 1995.
- I will post a list of nominations on OSEAS-Europe electronic discussion list ASAP after the November 30 deadline.
Voting:
- Immediately after the posting of the nominations list, voting can start.
- In addition to eligible advisers, also other "members" of OSEAS-Europe (see definition above) can vote.
- All votes should be in by December 15, 1995.
- Results will be posted on OSEAS-Europe list ASAP after the voting deadline has passed and votes have been counted.
- If there is only one nomination for a position, that person will be selected without a voting.
BENEFITS OF THIS PROPOSAL:
- gets us started after many years of talking about it, but no action having been taken.
- offers a democratic way of electing leadership instead of the earlier system of appointments without elections.
- creates a TEAM of leadership, instead of only one or two people.
- allows all advisers to participate and requires no compulsory membership fees or other financial investments.
- gets us started on a new way immediately, but at the same time keeps the structure simple. (By first reading, this may not seem simple judging just by the length of this message, but anyone who has familiarized themselves with the by-laws of for example
an incorporated association, knows that this REALLY is simple in comparison.) Those who are elected to the Board may then delevelop the system as much as they wish but at this point it is important to first get started by getting together a democraticall
y elected working group who can then start working on the structure further, if necessary.
PLEASE NOTE:
Please remember that if you are a European adviser and interested enough to have read this message you would probably be perfect for an active position in the Leadership. Please don't think that you have to have tons of experience and know lots of people to be eligible, because that is not the case. If you are interested and want to devote your time and effort to OSEAS- Europe, that is quite enough for you to consider nominating yourself.
Particularly, I would like to encourage those individuals who came up to me at the Athens conference and said that you would like to be active in OSEAS-Europe one way or another. All of you would be wonderful candidates. Now is your time!
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