nominating committee

[Dan Schlitt]

In article <1073 at mtxinu.UUCP> scherrer at mtxinu.COM (Deborah Scherrer) writes:
:The nominating committee is completely independent from the Board,
:other than the Board appointing a chairperson (someone has to).   The
:basic criteria is "who would do the best job."  Usually this means the
:person is someone who has been around the organization for a while,
:understands its workings, knows many of the people in the organization,
:has an idea of the responsibilities of serving on a Board of Directors,
:and is responsible enough to make sure the duties of the committee are
:carried out.

Fair enough so far.

:The chair then selects as many people for the committee as they deem
:appropriate, based on whatever criteria they choose.

Here the Board abdicates its responsibility to the organization.
Nominations are important and the quality of the nominees depends on
the quality of the nominating committee.

:Note in this particular case that the person chosen by the Board to be
:nominating committee chair had previously expressed an interest in
:running for the Board (BEFORE being asked to chair).  The Board was
:very aware that, by asking this person to chair the committee, they
:were putting him in a difficult spot.  The Board discussed it with him
:and. after the discussions, felt comfortable enough that the person
:could do a good job in spite of the uniqueness of the situation.

In this particular case the person asked by the Board had two choices,
decline the nomination as nominating committee chair or decide that it
was more important to head the nominating committee and forego running
for the Board.  Anything else leads to the kind of controversy which
is now starting and which will probably continue.  It is bound to hurt
the organization.  If Rob Kolstad' reported suggestion had been
followed then the operation of the nominating committee would have
been essentially clerical and the membership of the committee would
have been less important.  But the Board decided to ask the committee
to make judgements about the possible nominees.  They also must have
told the chair of the committee that it was ok to nominate himself.
Bad show.

:Deborah Scherrer
:USENIX Vice President

-- 
Dan Schlitt                        Manager, Science Division Computer Facility
dan at sci.ccny.cuny.edu              City College of New York
dan at ccnysci.uucp                   New York, NY 10031
dan at ccnysci.bitnet                 (212)690-6868