ELECTIONS

Class Leadership Launch

The Student Services (SS) Office will schedule a time to meet with each new cohort during a lunch period. They will present information on available class leadership positions, the role of Student Services, and a tentative timeline for the election process.

The SS Office will also create and share a Google Drive folder with the cohort that contains the leadership bylaws, a slide template, examples of previous election slides, an organizational chart, and current class leadership directories.

Current or past class leaders will attend the class leadership launch and present to the cohort about their respective positions. Students in the new cohort will have the opportunity to ask questions to Student Services and current class leaders.

Nominations Process

The SS Office will create an anonymous form using a third-party software that students can use to nominate themselves or their fellow classmates for a position in their cohort class leadership. This form will be sent to the cohort after the Class Leadership Launch and will be open to receive nominations until a specified deadline. Students can make multiple nominations if they would like.

Once the SS Office receives a nomination, Student Services Specialists will send an email to each student who has been nominated asking them to accept or decline their nomination(s) by a specified deadline. Students may only accept a nomination to run for one position. If there are any vacant positions, SS Specialists will notify the class and possibly re-open nominations for the vacant position(s).

If a student accepts a nomination, they must use the slide template provided in the shared Google Drive folder to create a slide that includes their name, position they’re running for, position statement, and applicable bio/past experience. The slides must be submitted to sss@ rm.edu by the specified deadline. The SS Specialists will compile all of the completed slides into a slide presentation of all leadership candidates. The SS Specialists will also create an anonymous form using a third-party software for students to use to vote in the election.

The Program Director and other faculty will be given time to review and approve the nominees before elections are open.

Elections Process

Once the nominees have been approved by the program, SS Specialists will send an email to the cohort to open elections and distribute the leadership candidate presentation. Elections will remain open until everyone in the cohort has voted. SS Specialists will monitor how many students have voted and will send email reminder(s) until all of the votes are received. All votes will be kept anonymous.

In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker election will occur.

Once all of the votes are received, the results will be sent to the Program Director for final approval. If the results are approved, SS Specialists will announce the new class leadership to the cohort, current class leaderships for the program, the Registrar’s office, and University Administration via email. SS Specialists will also manage the creation of a new class leadership directory and a new email group for the leadership.