HRSFA has operated under three separate constitutions too many,
I suspect, for such a small, young organization in its five year
history. The first of these was drafted by Chaz English and Alec Crawford
when the Association was founded in the fall of 1987; a copy of the short,
simple document can be found in the Office of the Dean of Students. It was
amended twice: the first amendment, added in the spring of 1988, moved the
Association's general elections to the middle of the academic year; the
second, added in February of 1989, replaced the office of co-chair with
those of president and vice-president and added the office of
editor-in-chief.
The first constitution died shortly after the second amendment was
added and the first elections under that amendment were held. The
proximate cause of the constitution's demise was the $800 the Association
had earned by showing The Accused in mid-February. An officers' meeting on
February 20th. This For now, I leave you with my best regards and my
article of the HRSFA constitution has only been in became deadlocked over
the disposition of that money how much was to be spent on
Fusion (which had just acquired new importance-see Chapter V), how
much was to be saved, and so on. Frustrated over the lack of authority
that his office, as then-constituted, possessed, President Adam Sabra
resigned shortly thereafter; he was replaced by a temporary triumvirate
composed of Vice President Steve Sigel, former co-chair Chaz English, and
former Secretary John Abbe.
In discussing the crisis that had occurred within their ranks, the
Association's officers decided (more or less) that a reworking of HRSFA's
constitution was in order, and in March Chaz English drafted a second
constitution. The general membership of HRSFA discussed the new document
at two special meetings that month. The first of these, held at Adams
House on March 7, 1989, was large (about twenty people attended), formal,
and ponderous, and accomplished very little; the second, held at Chaz
English's home on March 9th, was smaller (about a dozen people, including
Chaz's cat, attended), much less formal the conversation took in
crossbows, the Battle of Blood River, and other topics far removed from
that at hand and accomplished a great deal. Nearly all of the key
revisions to Mr. English's draft constitution were accomplished at the
March 9th meeting, in fact. (Also, Chaz served strawberry daiquiris, which
moved things right along.)
The second constitution reiterated most of the clauses of the first,
including the two amendments. It retained the new office of
Editor-in-Chief, replaced the offices of President and Vice-President with
the old position of co-chair, and added some minor provisions for
budgeting. The key change in the second HRSFA constitution, however, was
the introduction of a three-level decision-making structure a sort
of inverted pyramid, with the co-chairs at the bottom, the officers (taken
as a whole) in the middle, and the general membership of HRSFA (when
assembled at general meetings) at the top. The co-chairs were given
formal responsibility for the day-to-day affairs of the Association, while
the officers and general membership were given overall responsibility for
long-term planning and for the Association's larger events and
expenditures. Each level was required to report its actions (within a
reasonable period of time) to the level(s) above it, and each level was
given the power, by majority vote, to override, where possible, the
decisions of the level(s) below it.
This second constitution, with its revisions, was ratified and signed
at a general HRSFA meeting in April of 1989. Vice President Steven Sigel
assumed the office of co-chair, and in May Editor-in-Chief Eric Hargan was
elected to fill the other co-chair position. Unfortunately, the only copy
of the new constitution was lost that summer one may draw whatever
conclusions (about HRSFA) from this fact that one wishes so for the
first few months of the new school year the Association operated under the
officers' and members' memories of the document (and their general
indifference, by this time, to constitutional issues).
In February of 1990 this unsteady state of affairs was temporarily
corrected when yours truly forged a copy of the HRSFA constitution (based
on my memories of the original document, and of the two revision meetings
held the previous March) for presentation to the new officers of the
Association. However, it became apparent over the course of the following
year that there were several flaws in this document, apart from the fact
that it was, more or less, illegitimate.
The substitute constitution lacked, first of all, provisions for
notifying HRSFA members of upcoming officerial elections (which provisions
were included in the original second constitution, but forgotten by me);
secondly, there was no formal definition of a quorum for action at
Association meetings (apart from Darcy Gibbons's whimsical definition of a
quorum as "two-thirds of members present"); and thirdly, there was no
explication of the status of alumni, graduate students, and persons not
affiliated with Harvard within HRSFA. Bringing attention to these defects
at the HRSFA general election of February 3, 1991, alumnus John Abbe
proposed that the Association make appropriate changes to its working
constitution post-haste; after some discussion the Association voted to
put together a constitutional committee to address the problem after its
upcoming Masquerade Ball.
This was done. The new constitutional committee met for the first time
in the HRSFA office on March 18th, though as the only HRSFAns present were
myself and Elena O'Malley little was accomplished. The discussion held at
that meeting, however, while totally unrelated to the constitution,
nevertheless proved entertaining to all present. The second meeting of
the committee, on April 3rd, was somewhat more successful; those in
attendance decided to scrap and rewrite the existing constitution rather
than simply propose a package of amendments to it. The third meeting,
held on the steps of Widener Library on April 5, worked out most of the
important changes that were to be made, including a reshuffling of the
Association's officerial positions and a redefinition of their
responsibilities.
The original draft of the third HRSFA constitution was read to the
general membership of HRSFA by the committee chairman on April 7, 1991.
It was amended and ratified on the 21st of that month, and has remained in
place, unchanged, for more than a year and a half. The salient details of
the document are discussed at some length below.
The purpose, finally, of this somewhat lengthy and dry constitutional
history of HRSFA is not to provide a blueprint for future rewrites of the
Association's constitution. Quite the contrary; my intention was, in
fact, to describe the unusual circumstances which led HRSFA to twice
rewrite its fundamental rules. It is my hope that future constitutional
changes will be effected through the amendment process, since total
rewrites of the constitution, while they may strengthen the Association in
some ways, tend also to lead to arguments (sometimes bitter ones) and to
consume, if not actually waste, HRSFA's time. Since the Association only
has six or seven months out of every calendar year in which to conduct its
business, that time is somewhat more precious than its members usually
realize.
Onward...
Article Two Membership:
This is
a rather tricky issue, since it concerns the question "Who are you?" In
the past, HRSFA has been loath to turn away anyone interested in attending
meetings or participating in events, and it is my hope that the
Association will not start doing so any time soon. However, HRSFA does
have to meet certain membership requirements imposed upon it by the
University, which may be considered as a part of this constitution.
(Actually, they supersede it.)
HRSFA is an undergraduate organization (hence the "Harvard Radcliffe"
in the title), and is therefore required by the University to maintain a
membership that is at least 50% undergraduate. To date this has not been a
problem. Furthermore, all of HRSFA's officers must be undergraduates; to
date, no graduate student, alumnus/alumna, or non-Harvard person has
sought a HRSFA office (with good reason, too). Finally, the Association
must annually submit a membership list to the Office of the Dean of
Students, containing at least ten undergraduate names. This requirement is
a bit more complicated.
During my term as Secretary of HRSFA (1989-90), and presumably since
that time as well, HRSFA placed on its official list of members any
Harvard undergraduate or graduate student who had attended at least one
meeting (general or SIG) and had filled out a membership form. Membership
lists from previous years were retained and incorporated into the new
roster; graduated seniors and other former students were placed onto a
separate but equal list of alumni. The people on these lists
usually numbering between 150 and 200 (HRSFA has collected a lot of
membership forms over the years) were collectively referred to as
the general membership of HRSFA. This seems as good a definition of this
rather nebulous term as can be found.
The term associate member was coined by HRSFA's officers in the fall of
1989, when two Boston-area residents who were not Harvard students mailed
annual dues payments to HRSFA and asked to become members. (They were
responding to a membership ad placed by HRSFA in Volume Two of
Fusion, which was intended primarily for Harvard students but which
was read by a number of people at Worldcon.) During a later discussion
with co-chair.
Eric Hargan, Dean of Students Archie Epps advised that HRSFA allow
people not affiliated to Harvard to join the Association as "associate
members" upon purchasing a HRSFA membership card (see below), and to
grant these associates the right to attend meetings and the material
privileges afforded "card-carrying" HRSFA members. Epps also suggested
that associate members not be allowed to vote at general meetings.
In practice, HRSFA did not exclude non-dues-paying persons from its
meetings, nor did it actively try to prevent the one associate member (a
UMass/Boston student named Mark Gentile) who regularly attended meetings
that year from voting. In fact, associate members were and are
effectively excluded from only two things: serving as officers
(which is a blessing, not a hardship), and being included on HRSFA's
general membership list.
The term voting member, while it is only mentioned later in the
constitution, is nevertheless largely dependent on the second clause of
Article II, which concerns the levying of dues. HRSFA first began offering
"card-carrying membership" shortly after its founding; HRSFA members could
purchase, for a $3 annual fee, a spiffy black-and-white membership card
which entitled them to a 15% discount at the old Science Fantasy Bookstore
and a $1 discount at all HRSFA events. As the Association grew and the
number of benefits it could offer (a library, more discounts, etc.) also
increased, this fee was raised to $5 (in 1989), then to $7 (in 1991).
Furthermore, in the spring of 1989, during the first rewrite of the
HRSFA constitution, HRSFA members decided that the Association should have
the right to limit voting at general meetings to dues-paying members. I am
not sure why this was done. It may have been a half-hearted attempt by
HRSFA's more conservative members to concentrate power in the hands of the
wealthy and privileged, or it may have been an attempt to create a
welldefined core of (reasonably) dedicated HRSFAns within the otherwise
nebulous and uncohesive "general membership" of the Association.
In any case, this limitation went into effect during the 1989-90
academic year, and became the basis for the term voting membership, which
was developed during the second rewrite of the constitution in the spring
of 1991. "Voting membership," in turn, became the basis for the
long-sought-after definition of a "quorum," discussed in Article IV.
The third clause of Article II, which states that HRSFA "may not
discriminate against any current or potential member on the basis of race,
sex, religion, creed, age, sexual orientation, or handicap," is fairly
self-explanatory. HRSFA should also refrain from discriminating against a
member on the basis of his or her political views (see Article III), or
his or her specific sf interests. HRSFA should be home to all members of
the speculative fiction community, whether they are Star Trek fans,
unicorn-huggers, hard-sf cybergeeks, or "literary sf" fans who dress in
black and dismiss as puerile all science fiction except for "some of
Stanislaw Lem's criticism." Not that I am naming names.
Article Four Authority
and
Procedure: This is the longest and most important article in the HRSFA
constitution. It also happens to be fairly straightforward, and therefore
I will limit my comments on it to a few textual glosses. Sure I will.
Article IV of the current HRSFA constitution basically dispenses with
the authority structure created by the second HRSFA constitution, and
reserves all he officers and order the sergeant-at-arms to work them over,
or (most likely) greet the news with glazed indifference.
Article IV obliges both HRSFA's officers and its general membership to
meet at least once a month; in the past HRSFA's officers often met over
dinner directly before the Association's biweekly general meetings, which
seems a reasonable practice. The purpose of this constitutional rule is to
keep HRSFA's officers and members focused, to a minimal extent, on the
affairs and needs of the Association, lest these affairs and needs slip
their minds completely, and HRSFA go down the drain (due to unpaid bills,
unfired forms, etc.) as a result. HRSFA need not meet over the summer,
obviously, and usually does not meet during the month of January, save for
the occasional study break.
The fourth and fifth paragraphs of Article IV define a quorum for
action at HRSFA meetings, though they do not specifically refer to it as
such. A quorum is defined as "a majority of voting members, [present]
either in person or by proxy"; unless HRSFA wishes to change its voting
requirements, "voting members" means those general members (i.e.
undergraduates, members is present. Such a determination is necessary
whenever an officerial election is to be held, or when a constitutional
amendment or the removal of an officer from office is to be voted on, at
the general meeting in question.
At all other general meetings, the only condition that must exist in
order for official business to be conducted is the prior notification (one
week in advance of the actual event) of the Association's voting members.
Such notification can take many forms a letter, electronic mail,
astral projection, etc. though the best is probably a telephone
call. Persons wishing to buy HRSFA membership cards or otherwise become
voting members should be warned beforehand that they will receive frequent
annoying telephone calls from HRSFA members, reminding them of upcoming
meetings and events, if they choose to do so.
Article IV states that whenever a constitutional amendment or the
removal of an officer from office is proposed, voting on the matter in
question shall be delayed until the general meeting following that at
which the proposal is made. This is intended to ensure that HRSFA's
officers have time to notify all the voting members of the Association
that an important decision is to be made; it also gives HRSFA's members
time to think about that decision before making it. This delay is also
applied to officerial elections (see Article V).
Furthermore, any two HRSFA officers may elect to "suspend a vote" at a
general meeting until the following general meeting; this should be
interpreted as "suspend discussion of a vote," as well as the vote itself.
The purpose of this rule is to allow HRSFA's officers to bring a temporary
halt to a deadlocked, excessively drawn-out, or overly quarrelsome
discussion of a particular issue, resolution, or expenditure, and to give
the parties involved time to cool down and reconsider their positions. The
vote in question may only be delayed once that is, HRSFA's officers
cannot suspend it a second time at the next general meeting but
there is nothing to stop HRSFA's general membership from voting to table
the decision themselves. (I use the American interpretation of the verb
"to table," of course.)
The power to suspend votes should be used sparingly by HRSFA's
officers, particularly in the case of amendments and removals from office,
and should, in my opinion, never be used to delay an election. Also, a
vote should not be suspended if it occurs during the last general meeting
of a given school year, as this is unfair to those students about to
graduate. To date, the power to suspend votes has never been used by
HRSFA's officers.
Finally, the constitution provides that the text of certain proposed
decisions (amendments, removals from office, and suspended decisions), and
lists of officer nominees, be "displayed in an accessible location" seven
days prior to the meeting at which they will be voted on. "Accessible
location" has come to mean the door or exterior wall of the Association's
office (the interior of the current office is freely accessible only to
someone who has keys to it); if HRSFA should ever lose its office (perish
the thought) another generally agreed-upon location, such as one of the
Science Center bulletin boards, may be used. The posting should be made by
HRSFA's managing secretary, who is generally responsible for the
Association's written records.
Article Five Officers:
HRSFA
originally had five officer positions: two co-chairs, a treasurer, a
secretary, and a SIG coordinator. All of these positions, save that of
treasurer, have gone through significant changes since 1987.
The Association has nearly always had two co-chairs at its head; these
offices were briefly (in February of 1989) replaced with separate
president and vice president positions, though after President Adam
Sabra's resignation these innovations were somewhat tarnished and were
eliminated in the second HRSFA constitution. I am uncertain why Chaz
English and Alec Crawford, who wrote the original constitution, decided
that HRSFA should be led by two co-chairs instead of one president;
perhaps they wanted to avoid imposing a hierarchical structure on the new
organization. (Personally, I believe they just thought the idea of having
two co-chairs was neat.)
Under the second HRSFA constitution, the Association's co-chairs
occupied a distinct (if somewhat inferior) level within HRSFA's
(subsequently discarded) authority structure, and were charged with
overseeing the HRSFA's day-to-day affairs. Co-chair Eric Hargan (who held
that office from the fall of 1989 until February of 1990) interpreted
"day-to-day affairs" as "dealing with the campus bureaucracy" that
is, talking with the Dean of Students, filing membership forms, acquiring
a meeting place for HRSFA general meetings, arranging for HRSFA to receive
Centrex service, etc. This became the chief official duty of the co-chairs
under the third constitution.
The co-chairs' are also charged with "[dealing] with other
organizations affiliated with Harvard," which translates as "Phillips
Brooks House, the campus press and other student organizations, and any
group which can be considered a part of the official Harvard community,
whatever that means." The exception to this list is the Undergraduate
Council, which-along with the Radcliffe Union of Students and other
money-dispensing organizations lies within the jurisdiction of the
Treasurer' as per Article VII.
Finally, the co-chairs are "generally responsible for leading HRSFA,"
which they may interpret any way they please; in the past it has meant
calling meetings to order and keeping them orderly (or inducing enough
chaos to make them interesting), overseeing (though not necessarily
running) HRSFA's larger activities, such as movies and the Masquerade, and
promoting a high (or at least fair) level of morale among Association
members, chiefly by intimidating them into having fun.
The office of treasurer has, as previously noted, remained virtually
unchanged since HRSFA's founding. Credit for this should probably go to
Amy Chused, who has (at the time of this writing) held the office for
nearly three years and kept it sound. A minor change was introduced into
this office by the third HRSFA constitution: the amount of the
"discretionary fund" possessed by the treasurer that is, the amount
of money the treasurer could spend at his or her own discretion was
changed from $20 to an amount to be determined at HRSFA budget meetings.
(The old $20 limit, incidentally, applied to the amount of money the
treasurer could spend at one go without consulting other officers or
members, rather than to the total amount of money the treasurer could
spend at his or her discretion.)
HRSFA's treasurer is responsible (by tradition rather than
constitutionally) for the sale of Association membership cards, and should
maintain and make available to other officers a list of HRSFA's
"card-carrying members," which, given the Association's current voting
restrictions and quorum rules, they need to consult from time to time.
Also, the treasurer should endeavor to attend the business meetings of
Fusion, the masquerade committee, and other large HRSFA
enterprises, or to at least send a proxy.
The two secretarial positions can be considered the mutant offspring of
the old offices of secretary and SIG coordinator. Originally, all of the
duties of the current coordinating and managing secretary offices (save
only for SIG-related duties) were assigned to one HRSFA secretary, who was
thus fairly powerful and very overworked. Meanwhile, an officer whose
position no longer exists, the SIG coordinator, was responsible for
keeping track of the Association's Special Interest Groups and maintaining
their records, if any. This office was generally regarded as a sinecure,
and Lee Valentine, who became SIG Coordinator in February of 1990, found
his duties sufficiently undemanding that he began casting about for
additional jobs to do, and eventually became business and production
manager of Fusion magazine.
Thus, in the spring of 1991 HRSFA's constitutional committee decided,
after some debate, to eliminate the position of SIG Coordinator (Carl
Anderson, who was Valentine's successor to that office, became an
"officer-at-large" until he was elected co-chair in October) and to
transfer its duties to the HRSFA secretary. The now-severely-overextended
office of secretary was divided into two positions, popularly known as the
"internal secretary" and the "external secretary." (The constitutional
names of these positions, "managing secretary" and "coordinating
secretary," were my own invention; as they are not very descriptive and
are seldom used by HRSFAns these terms should, perhaps, be discarded.)
HRSFA's internal secretary is responsible for keeping the Association's
non-financial records: membership and alumni lists, minutes of meetings,
records of bylaws and proposed amendments, random doodles and scribbles,
and the like. This is, in itself, a fairly large task. In addition, the
internal secretary must keep copies of whatever records the Special
Interest Groups maintain, and ensure that the SIGs stay within the
membership guidelines prescribed by Article VI. He or she is also
responsible for the upkeep of the Association's "physical plant," which is
a pretentious way of referring to HRSFA's office and lending libraries.
All in all, the internal secretary has the lion's share of secretarial
duties.
The job of external secretary, however, is no sinecure. This officer is
responsible for HRSFA's correspondence and "external relations," which,
practically speaking, makes him or her responsible for alumni mailings and
fund drives, acquiring alumni advisors, keeping good relations with local
businesses (by leading book-buying and game-buying expeditions to acquire
material for HRSFA's lending libraries, encouraging Fusion's
business manager to offer advertising space to stores in exchange for
member discounts, and so forth), and staying in touch with that vast and
diffuse entity known as "science fiction fandom." (HRSFA's past contacts
have included sf organizations in Mount Holyoke, Kentucky, and Gdansk.)
The external secretary should also keep HRSFA's members apprised of
upcoming science fiction conventions and events of interest outside of
Harvard, or at least appoint someone to do so. (Incidentally, the formal
title of this officer, "coordinating secretary," is a fossil remnant of
the old position of SIG coordinator. This fact has little to do with the
actual duties of the external secretary, however.)
The office of editor-in-chief was created in February of 1989 to
breathe some life into Fusion magazine, which was then somewhat
dormant. Previously, the magazine had been a SIG; the creation of this
new office made it an Association-wide concern, and (incidentally) gave
HRSFA's general members some power regulate its format and internal
affairs. The editor-in-chief has jurisdiction over all of HRSFA's
publications, though in the past he has only been held responsible for
Fusion magazine, and has delegated authority over the Association's
newsletters (if any) to other persons (generally the internal secretary).
If should be noted that the editor is also responsible for filing copies
of Fusion and any newsletters HRSFA produces with the University
Archives and the Office of the Dean of Students, as required by university
regulations.
Obviously, the officers' duties overlap in a number of areas, which
provides another reason for regular officer meetings: to allow the
officers to discuss upcoming activities and events and divide the tasks
associated with those events between them, either along constitutional
lines or (more likely) according to each officer's skills and
preferences.
The language on elections in Article V is fairly straightforward. It
should be made clear that all officers' terms expire at the time of a
general election, regardless of how long they have been holding their
offices. If, due to nuclear war, failure to achieve a quorum, or some
other disaster, the general election must be delayed past the
constitutionally prescribed time, the sitting officers' terms shall be
extended until the time of that election; exception should be made, of
course, for seniors with impending thesis deadlines.
While Article V of the HRSFA constitution includes provisions for the
removal of an officer from office (as did past versions of the
constitution, though they improperly referred to it as "impeachment"),
this has never been done before in the Association's history, nor (in my
opinion) should it be done except in dire circumstances. There are
numerous ways for HRSFA's members to express disapproval with officers and
urge them to mend their ways short of removal; if all else fails, HRSFAns
can always wait until an officer's term expires and elect someone else to
that office.
Article Six Special
Interest
Groups: Traditionally, HRSFA's SIGs have been considered semi-autonomous
groups within the Association almost (but not quite) separate
clubs. They "possess the same privileges as the Association itself," which
is to say they can put up their own posters' apply to Harvard's
bureaucracy for meeting space, and, via the HRSFA treasurer and budget
meetings, beg the UC for money. Additionally, SIGs have control over their
own internal affairs electing or dumping SIG leaders, setting the
times of meetings, deciding on specific purchases to be made with the
money HRSFA has allotted them, etc. While the constitution has nothing
specific to say on the matter, HRSFA's general membership has only limited
powers over the Association's individual SIGs not that this has
ever proven to be a problem. (SIGs have usually been too small and fragile
to want to assert much autonomy.)
In terms of SIG membership requirements, the "eight members to form,
five to maintain" formula was recommended by Dean Epps when HRSFA was
founded in the fall of 1987, and should not be changed. The internal
secretary should require each SIG to submit to him (or her) a summary of
its activities and a list of its current members every semester, the
former document to ensure that the SIG isn't dormant, and the latter to
ensure that it has at least five active members. If the SIG fails to meet
this latter criterion, it "shall cease to exist as utterly and finally as
did Czechoslovakia in 1939" which is to say until someone comes
along, possibly at the head of the Red Army, and re-establishes it.
SIGs may only limit their membership by interest they are
forbidden to limit membership by race, sex, religion, age, handicap, or
sexual orientation, and should be discouraged from limiting membership by
nationality. A SIG may, however, concern itself with issues of race,
gender, and so forth in sf. SIGs are also forbidden to constitute
themselves as political organizations, though HRSFA's general members must
decide what that means. A Space Issues SIG is probably acceptable; a Send
Dan Quayle to Mars SIG is pushing it; and a Libertarian SIG is right
out.
More information on SIGs can be found in Chapter Three of Apocrypha
HRSFAlogicæ.