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But, it all starts with the election of the BOD. And, in my thinking, that means an open election with open discussions with the candidates. As long as the BOD has a selection committee to decide on who is qualified to run . . . . they will never have my trust. Open the candidacy to anyone who has been an AAW member for two years or three or whatever. Let them announce their candidacy in a designated forum ares of the AAW website. Allow the members to engage them in a forum dialogue . . . then, let us vote. It's the Technology Age, remember?
first candidacy is open to all. There is a filtering done by a selection board.
Posting 19 candidates in the journal gets a bit unwieldy.
I was AAW nominating committee Chair in 2007. Bob Rosand was the former board member and Mike Mahoney was our member who had not been a previous member.
We had 9 candidates for 6 positions. Candidates seeking nomination submit 2 letters of recommendation and a personal statement of why they wish to run for the board. Each of our committee members read these materials and conducted a phone interview with each candidate. In our phone interview we each asked the same 3 questions and one which was unique to ourselves. We all knew the questions the other was asking. During the interviews we allowed the candidate to provide any information they wished.
We had several phone conferences during the process. In our process we each independently ranked the candidate 1 to 9. When I did this ranking I really struggled with the who was 6,7,8. In my mind one candidate was not suitable. I did feel that whoever I put 7,8 would be a good potential board member. In essence there were 8 worthy candidates and I had to select the best 6.
In our final votes we all had the same names on our 1-5. Bob and Mike had the same person for number 6. I had another for number 6 and my number 7 matched their number 6. We spent a good 15 minutes talking about those two candidates. In the end we went with Bob and Mikes number 6. We all agreed on number 9.
One of the folks that did not make it had a recommendation letter from the AAW president. As a foot note we agreed on our 1,2,3 and they were elected.
Would another committee make the same choices?? The makeup of the nominating committee changes every year the next committee might have chosen a different 6.
The last step in the process is that the President of AAW calls the 6 selected nominees and the nominating chair gets to make the rejection call. For me that it was especially difficult to tell two qualified individuals they were not selected. I encouraged them each to consider running again.
I personally think this process works quite well.
-Al
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