Related Content
•
CoSIDA Board of Directors
•
2020 CoSIDA Constitution
Final voting totals showed CoSIDA members supported the CoSIDA Constitutional amendments and governance change at a 95.3% approval rate. The Constitution changes immediately, with the current Board of Directors in effect until everyone’s terms expire. There will be a phase-in of the new divisional cabinets and advisory councils.
In membership-wide voting conducted June 17-19, the CoSIDA membership overwhelming approved the proposed 2020 CoSIDA constitutional amendments.
With the vote, CoSIDA will now move to a new governance structure that is more streamlined, efficient and responsive to members’ needs and initiatives throughout the divisions, and will increase the opportunities for leadership in the organization.
These changes are in effect immediately. The CoSIDA Board of Directors now becomes the Executive Board of Directors and each Board member will stay on the Executive Board until their terms expires.
Over the next few months, CoSIDA will work to guide the formation of divisional cabinets and advisory council in a phase-in process. Each division will have autonomy to form their own structure.
The Amendments to Articles 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12 of the CoSIDA Constitution were proposed by Past President Herb Vincent, Southeastern Conference Associate Commissioner, Communications. Vincent led a CoSIDA governance working group which developed the proposal; the proposal was then endorsed by the CoSIDA Board of Directors as part of a proposed modernization of the association's governance structure.
“This is an important decision for our organization and it sets a clear path to a future that will serve our organization more effectively, more inclusively and with more opportunity to develop leaders across all divisions of CoSIDA,” commented Vincent. “There is more work to be done to implement the new structure, but the overwhelming support of this proposal shows that the membership is ready for change.”
The measure passed because it met the thresholds of 10 percent of the membership voting (325 members) and 60 percent of those members voting in favor of the measure. A total of 658 members voted.
"CoSIDA has evolved over time and with this vote, our membership supports the need to improve our governance structure,” noted new 2020-21 CoSIDA President Sam Atkinson, Gallaudet University Associate AD for Communications. “This change will allow more leadership opportunities for our members and provides equal access to all of our divisional leadership groups. We look forward to implementing this change as we transition, over the next few years, from our current board set-up to our new Executive Board of Directors."
Vincent and the governance working group met the last few years to map out the changes, communicating with the membership throughout the process in webinars, membership-wide emails, CoSIDA.com stories, CoSIDA 360 magazine features, and more. Membership feedback opportunities were available throughout the process.
