The USAIN Bylaws Committee is moving forward on a handful of changes to the USAIN Bylaws (https://usain.org/Fullbylaws).  The Bylaws were last revised in 2016.  This year we need to make some grammatical changes and modifications to officer and nominations and elections to align our Bylaws with the USAIN Procedures and Rules (https://usain.org/P-and-R) and with current practice.

There are 8 proposed amendments:

• Article I. Section 2. The amendment is proposed to correct punctuation.

• Article II. Section 3. – The amendment is to add a date for the establishment of Land Grant Universities.
• Article III. Section 1. The amendment is proposed to simply punctuation.
• Article IV. Section 1. – Removal of “disability or withdrawal” as the conditions in which the President is unable to serve. This will allow for more flexibility if transfer of duties to the President-Elect is ever needed.
• Article IV. Section 5. The amendment is proposed to correct punctuation.
• Article VII. Section 1. The amendment is proposed to correct punctuation.
• Article IX. Section 1 and 2. Clarifies language around nominations and elections. We are recommending the removal of geographic and membership category distribution, as this has limited the committee in the past, although we recognize that it is a good practice to follow. In addition, we are not always able to recruit a full slate for each open position, so we have added “strive to” to Section  

These proposed amendments have been approved by the voting members of the USAIN Executive Council, so we are now sharing the proposed amendments with the entire USAIN membership.  The amendments will be discussed and voted on during the Business Meeting at the upcoming USAIN Virtual Conference, so please review the amendments before then.  If the amendments are approved by a majority vote during the Business Meeting, they will be submitted to the entire voting membership for a final decision via electronic ballot.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact either member of the USAIN Bylaws Committee. The document with proposed changes was shared on the USAIN-L listserv. 

Respectfully,

USAIN Bylaws Committee

Kristen Mastel, Chair

Noel Kopriva