ASCIT Board of Directors Propose New Bylaws Amendments

In our annual review of the ASCIT Bylaws, ASCIT Board of Directors has decided to propose the following amendments. These propositions have been approved unanimously by the Board of Directors, and we now bring them to the undergraduate students to be voted into action. We will have the Review Committee send out voting procedures at the beginning of next term (as to avoid having an amendment election during finals). Before then, we will release another reminder in The Tech, but prior to this, we wanted to outline the amendments that are being proposed, why they are being proposed, and elicit your vote in January.

All of the proposed amendments are simply revisions to the existing amendments in the ASCIT Bylaws (which can be found on Donut under the ASCIT -> Publications-> Bylaws tab), and there are no new amendments being recommended in this election. The amendment revisions are outlined below with the revised wording in bold.

Revision to Article **IV, Section 5

“The Board of Directors may pass Resolutions upon approval of four members. The Secretary shall record and make public all Board Resolutions. Resolutions concerning the formation of a committee or office shall require the approval of the Review Committee. Approved staff positions and their duties will be recorded in a Resolution. Once approved, resolutions passed will stand until inactivated by the Board of Directors or recalled by a ⅔ vote by the Review Committee”

This change is simply to codify a practice that has already been implemented in ASCIT B.o.D. proceedings. In essence, adding this line allows us to keep resolutions adopted by previous B.o.D. ’s without spending meeting time to re-vote on resolutions that have already been passed. (For reference, unlike amendments, resolutions are only voted on by the B.o.D. and ratified by RevComm to establish standards of practice for a particular Board of Directors. These often include creation of staff positions, commitment to maintain student spaces, etc., and with each new B.o.D. resolutions must be renewed). Hence, the focus of this amendment is to streamline ASCIT proceedings and increase operational efficiency.

Revision to Article IV, Section 4

“The Board of Directors may choose to create staff positions to assist with the responsibilities of officers of the Corporation, with the approval of the Review Committee. Staff positions must be voted upon in a Board Resolution. The officer receiving assistance is directly responsible for the activity of their staff. All staff positions and resolutions expire upon retirement of the associated officer and cannot be reappointed without reapproval of the position and resolution by the Review Committee. Staff members can only be granted the right to attend VPSA or closed meetings by invitation by the Board of Directors.”

The above gives ASCIT B.o.D. the ability to extend more privileges to appointed staff. There has been no precedent of such, and we wish to codify this jurisdiction.

Revision to Article IX, Section 5

“Each Corporation member will be assessed fifteen dollars ($15) for the Big T, payable on the days of registration at the rate of five dollars ($5) per term. Each year after 2025, the BigT will be expected to publish a digital yearbook for all members of ASCIT. The exact format of this yearbook will be determined by the Big T Editor’s discretion. Concurrently, each year the Big T will publish a physical edition of the past four years’ yearbook in a quantity large enough to provie each student in the graduating senior class with a physical yearbook.

A member withdrawing before the end of third term of their senior year may either receive a refund for installments paid, or complete the payments and receive an annual. Before the end of third term of their senior year, a member who does not wish to receive a copy may, upon written request to the Business Manager of the Big T, receive a refund of any installments paid toward that year’s book.”

This amendment changes the current yearbook distribution practices to reduce waste and prioritize ASCIT budget. This amendment will make it such that the Big T will create digital yearbooks/photo collections for every year. However, rather than printing a yearbook for every student every year, there will be “mega yearbooks” printed each year for the graduating class only. These “mega yearbooks” will be an amassing of the digital yearbooks from a student’s time at Caltech. This will prevent the surplus of yearbooks we have experienced in the past few years. Further, this will reduce the amount of student dues that are allocated to the Big T. While students will not see a change in the amount they are charged for dues, this amendment allows for the reallocation of said funds to other ASCIT projects (for example, reducing the costs of Formal Tickets).

Revision to Article VII, Sections 1 and 8

Election Periods. All house presidents are to be installed by the first MOnday of third term. Nominations for CRC CoChair, IHC Chair, BoC Chair, BoC and all other elected offices shall open at 8 A.M. on the first Monday of third term shall close at 5 P.M. the following Friday. All nominated candidates shall be listed on a ballot and voted upon at elections to occur the second Monday following the closing of nominations for that office…

Installation of CRC CoChair, IHC Chair, BoC Chair, BoC Secretaries, Tech Editors and all remaining Officers will take place on the 6th Monday of 3rd term.

An oath of office shall be administered by the retiring President to the incoming President which may take the following form: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the Articles of Incorporation of the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology, Incorporated, and that I will discharge the duties of the office to which I was elected to the best of my ability.”

The President shall administer the oath of his choice to the incoming Board of Directors.”

The changes above collapse IHC, CRC, and BoC Chairs as well as BoC secretaries, Tech Editors and the remaining nominated ASCIT B.o.D. positions into one election. The goal of this is to allow these positions to be determined prior to the rooms picks process for houses that give picks to Campus positions. Further, the installation of House presidents by the beginning of third term will grant Houses more flexibility to move their elections later (if they so choose), because an agreement with OSE has been made to move leadership week trainings to third term (so that all student leaders can be trained together). Please note: the later installation of presidents will not be active until 2026 and the next leadership week training will occur in February, 2025. However, the collapse of campus-wide elections will go into effect this academic year (spring 2025).

If you have any questions regarding the propositions above, please do not hesitate to reach out to a B.o.D. member, come to an ASCIT meeting, or visit the “Documents” page of Donut.

I will be reaching out again next term to solicit your votes, but wanted to put this on everyone’s radar as we go into winter break.

Cheers & good luck on finals!