Bylaws of the University of California Santa Barbara Faculty Association
Amended July 24, 2023
Article I. Name
Article II. Purpose and Functions
Article III. Membership
Article IV. Relation to the Santa Barbara Division
Article V. Executive Board and Officers
Article VI. Duties of the Executive Board and its officers
Article VII. Staff of the Association
Article VIII. Dues and Assessments
Article IX. Meetings.
Article X. Voting and Electronic Ballots.
Article XI. Amendment of these Bylaws.
Article XII. Effective Date
Article I. Name. The name of this organization, referred to as “Association” in these By-laws, is the University of California Santa Barbara Faculty Association, also known as Santa Barbara Faculty Association (SBFA).
Article II. Purposes and Functions
Section 1. The Association shall have as its general purposes:
(a) To preserve and heighten the professional and scholarly values held by the faculty.
(b) To protect and strengthen the privileges and responsibilities traditionally reserved to the faculty for maintaining and improving academic quality on campus.
(c) To support and effect faculty participation in the governance of the University.
(d) To maintain and improve the economic status and general welfare of the faculty.
(e) To communicate with members regularly on how the Association is pursuing these goals.
Section 2. The Association shall have as its principal functions:
(a) To inform, consult with, and represent faculty interests to all agencies whose decisions affect the faculty, and to gather and disseminate to the faculty information on all relevant issues before such agencies. These agencies include the legislative and executive branches of government and administrative agencies of the State of California, the Public Employment Relations Board, the California Post-Secondary Education Commission, the Board of Regents, and when appropriate, the University-wide and campus administrations.
(b) To encourage the development of, maintain contact with, coordinate its activities with, and form liaisons with parallel or similar organizations on other campuses of the University of California.
(c) To prepare for the possibility of collective bargaining by continually informing itself and the faulty on all relevant issues. It will monitor and attempt to influence any legislation that might be regarded as affecting collective bargaining by University faculty, so as to protect and further faculty interests such as the right to self-determination. With the authorization of collective bargaining, it may, upon approval of the membership, seek to become the collective bargaining agent for the faculty.
Article III. Membership.
Section 1. Membership in the Association is open to all members of the Academic Senate, Santa Barbara Division. Members who are administrative officers above the rank of chair of a department may not be members of the Executive Board.
Section 2. The criteria for membership may be altered only on approval, in a ballot of the membership, by an absolute majority of those voting. The Executive Board shall make its views on the proposed alteration of membership criteria known to the membership at the time ballots are sent.
Article IV. Relation to the Santa Barbara Division.
The Association supports the principles of governance expressed in the present delegation of authority by the Board of Regents to the Academic Senate. Although recognizing and supporting the Senate as the governing body of the faculty, the Association shall carry out its functions independently of the activities of the Santa Barbara Division and its committees and shall not make use of the resources or facilities of the Division.
Article V. Executive Board and Officers.
Section 1. The Association shall have an Executive Board consisting of at least seven members, and a maximum of eleven, elected by the members of the Association.
Section 2. The officers of the Association shall be a President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. Either the Secretary or the Treasurer will assume the role of Vice-President, or a fourth Board member can serve as Vice-President. The officers shall be selected by the Executive Board from its own members following each election of Board members and shall serve until successors are selected. Officers once selected may be removed by a vote of 2/3 of the members of the Board at a meeting called for that purpose.
Section 3. In order to guarantee both continuity and rotation, the minimum term of Board members shall be two years, beginning July 1 and ending June 30. Each Board member, however, may request to renew her/his stay on the Board for a second two-year term by May 15 and be approved to stay by a majority vote of the Board and without an election. At the end of this second term, however, membership in the Board will automatically expire and the seat will be open for the election of another member or the same member. There are no term limits for membership in the Board, but a member must run for reelection at least every four years.
Section 4. Vacancies on the Executive Board shall be filled by action of the Executive Board; the term of such appointments to the Board shall expire when the position has been filled at the next election.
Section 5. The annual elections for the Executive Board shall be conducted in May by electronic ballot of the members in good standing as of April 1 of that year. The Executive Board shall review the electronic membership listserve to verify that it is accurate prior to the notice of election and electronic ballots. All Board positions with terms expiring June 30 of that year, or not renewed (including Board positions, filled by appointees who have one more year to run) can be contested. The Board shall appoint an Election Committee of three Association members, which will certify the results of the vote within one week after electronic voting ends.
Section 6. The Executive Board shall arrange for the annual election of members to the Board in the following manner:
(a) By April 1 the Board shall ask for self-nominations or nominations of Association members from all members of the Association. Any member in good standing, who is nominated by a member in good standing, and has agreed to run, will be a candidate.
(b) By May 15 the Board shall circulate via the electronic listserve of the general membership of the Association the names of candidates along with electronic ballots.
(c) The ballot shall instruct the members to vote for only as many candidates as there are positions to be filled. The ballot shall provide for write-in candidates. The ballot shall provide the instructions of the electronic voting system. The ballot shall provide the exact time frame for the elections. The electronic balloting system shall be so designed as to enable votes to be cast secretly and only once per election.
(d) Once all votes have been received, the Election Committee shall verify that all and only ballots to be counted have been submitted by members in good standing, and, if no irregularities have been found, will certify the election and communicate the results to the Board. The Board will provide a membership list to the Committee for this purpose.
(e) The Executive Board shall declare elected to the Board the candidates necessary to fill all vacant positions having the highest vote counts. Tie votes for the last positions to be filled shall be broken by lottery in which the names of the tied candidates are placed in a closed box and the necessary number of names is drawn out by the President.
Article VI. Duties of the Executive Board and its officers
Section 1. The Executive Board shall meet at the discretion of the President or at the request of three members of the Board. A majority of the Board shall constitute a quorum for binding votes. The Board shall keep itself and the Association informed on all matters that may concern the Association’s purposes and functions as stated in Article II and may create, when appropriate, committees to assist in these duties; it shall act as the governing body of the Association between Association meetings; it shall direct the recruitment of new members.
Section 2. The duties of the officers are as follows:
(a) The President shall preside over meetings of the Association and of the Executive Board, and shall issue the call for such meetings, and shall supervise the administration of the Association’s programs. The President shall be the Association’s representative to the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), unless otherwise delegated.
(b) The Vice-President shall assist the President in the supervision of the general program of the Association and shall act in the President’s stead at all Association and Executive Board meetings which the President is unable to attend. The Vice-President shall be the Association’s alternate representative to CUCFA, unless otherwise delegated.
(c) The Secretary shall keep records of the Association, including the minutes of all regular and special meetings of the Association and all meetings of the Executive Board, shall conduct the ordinary correspondence of the Association, and shall issue notice of the call to regular and special meetings of the Association when requested to do so by the President.
(d) The Treasurer shall serve as the custodian of Association funds and shall keep funds in a suitable depository. They shall keep the Association’s financial statement up to date at all times and make it available to any member of the Association upon request. They shall maintain and keep a current list of the membership in good standing and make it available at any meeting of the Association when called for. They shall disburse funds of the Association as authorized by the Executive Board, and shall receive the payment of membership dues and handle the processing of payroll deduction forms. At each election cycle, the Treasurer will send all members of the Association a financial statement.
(e) One Executive Board member in addition to the Treasurer shall have signatory authority over the Association’s accounts. In addition to the Treasurer, an Executive Board or Staff member shall have access to the monthly bank account statements and the option to review them.
Section 3. Members of the Executive Board shall perform such other functions as the Board may determine or supervise others in the performance of the Association’s business, such as maintenance of the Association’s website and organization of electronic voting. The Association or the Board may establish such committees as circumstances require.
Article VII. The Staff of the Association
The Executive Board shall employ such staff as is necessary for the efficient functioning of the Association. The staff will operate under the direction of the Board. The Board will annually review the Association’s finances and staffing needs and the performance of staff. Staff shall be contract workers with compensation consisting solely of payment for hours worked.
Article VIII. Dues and Assessments
Section 1. The Board shall develop an equitable dues structure. Assessments shall be at the discretion of the Board.
Section 2. The dues shall be graduated by faculty rank on a twelve-month basis at the rates set by the Board for Assistant, Associate, Full, and Emeriti Professors. The Board may develop a comparable and equitable dues structure to cover persons holding other titles, members on leave, and other special categories.
Section 3. In extraordinary cases where special conditions warrant that it would be equitable and justified, the Executive Board may temporarily modify or excuse the monthly dues payment of an individual member of the Association when requested to do so by any member of the Association in good standing.
Section 4. Changes in any part of the dues structure specified in Section 2 above shall require the approval, in an electronic ballot of the membership in good standing, of a majority of those casting valid ballots.
Section 5. Special assessment may be levied upon the recommendation of the Executive Board and upon approval by a majority vote via electronic ballot. Any such assessment should be considered an extraordinary measure. The Executive Board shall provide a detailed, written justification of the assessment sent to all members, and make provision for a plenary meeting of the Association, followed by an electronic balloting of all members in good standing.
Section 6. In the event the Association dissolves, its total assets shall be divided equally among the members in good standing after all debts have been paid.
Article IX. Meetings.
Section 1. The Association shall schedule ordinary and extraordinary meetings of members during each academic year as required by circumstances.
Section 2. The President shall call a special meeting of the Association within two weeks when requested to do so by a majority of the Executive Board or a petition signed by at least ten percent of the membership in good standing.
Section 3. The quorum for any Association meeting shall be twenty Association members in good standing or five percent of such membership, whichever is higher. Any action taken at an Association meeting shall be submitted for approval to the membership by electronic ballot upon request of one-third of the members in attendance at that meeting or of a majority of the Executive Board.
Section 4. The Secretary shall issue a notice of any regular or special meeting of the Association at least seven days prior to the meeting date unless the Executive Board deems that circumstances require shorter notice.
Section 5. Disputes concerned with procedures to be followed at meetings of the Association shall be resolved whenever possible according to the Roberts’ Rules of Order (newly revised, 11th edition). When this code does not resolve the procedural difficulty, the dispute may be settled by a ruling of the presiding officer, subject to reversal on appeal only by a vote of at least two-thirds of those members present and voting.
Article X. Voting and Electronic Ballots.
Section 1. Except as otherwise specified in these Bylaws, those eligible to participate in any vote or electronic ballot must be members in good standing (cf. Art. III, Sec. 2) as of one month prior to the date of the vote or the return date of the electronic ballot.
Section 2. Except as otherwise specified in these Bylaws, matters submitted to a vote or electronic ballot shall require for adoption only a simple majority of casting valid votes or ballots.
Section 3. Electronic ballots other than those required or scheduled by these Bylaws may be initiated for any purpose by the Executive Board or by direction of a regular or special meeting of the Association. Unless the Board shall declare that an emergency exists requiring a shorter period, or that careful deliberations are needed requiring a longer period, all electronic ballots shall require members to vote within two weeks of the date of the notice, and this shall be indicated on the ballots and electronic notices to members.
Section 4. Communications with members, including election notices, election ballots, and polls, may be conducted using appropriate controls for security to be determined by the Executive Board using the technology of the moment. This rule shall apply to all places in the Bylaws where the terms “mail and listserve” appear.
Article XI. Amendment of these Bylaws.
Except as provided in Article III, Section 3, and Article VIII, Section 3, these Bylaws may be amended by a two-thirds or greater favorable vote of the membership in good standing responding to an electronic ballot. Proposed amendments will be submitted to such ballot either on the recommendation of the Executive Board or by petition of one-third of the membership in good standing.
Article XII. Effective Date.
The Bylaws become effective on November 6, 1979. Amendments to the Bylaws shall take effect immediately upon certification of the electronic election, unless otherwise specified. Amended June 5, 2021: Article III Section 2. Article V Sections 1,2,4, and 5. Article VI Sections 1 and 2, Article VII, Article VIII Sections 1,2, and 3. Article IX Section 1. Article X Section 4. July 24, 2023 Name of Association amended.