Draft SFTE Constitution - Final Version Published

SFTE Members,

Over the last term the current board of directors has engaged on an exercise to consolidate and simplify our governing documents, namely the constitution and by-laws. This effort was driven primarily by 2 factors:

  • The existing constitution predated digital communications methods and specifically called out use of physical mail for the primary communications of the society (amongst other areas which have been overtaken by technological development)
  • Over the past 50+ years an informal process of using Policy Letters to clarify or redefine elements of the society governance had developed. This was never specifically authorized by the constitution, and also required our existing governing documents to be read along with 30+ policy letters, which could change the intent significantly of the primary constitution.

The final draft being presented today for your review consolidates all the relevant information from the previous policy letters (which will be retained for historical relevance) as well as making the communications of the society technology agnostic.

The update intentionally made no significant structural changes, the intent was simply a cleanup.

In order to accept this update we must obtain acceptance by 75% of the eligible membership (Fellows, Senior Members and Members), which is intended to be voted on at this year's Annual Business Meeting.

For those associated with a chapter, your chapter representatives at the ABM will vote on your behalf, so we encourage you to ensure they are aware of any questions or concerns you have with this update.

For At Large members you will shortly receive a ballot, your votes will be tallied individually and added to the consolidated votes of chapter affiliated members.

If you have questions we encourage you to share them in advance to vicepresident@sfte.org.

As a board we endorse this update, and hope to obtain your votes in favor at the Annual Business Meeting.

With Best Regards,
Board of Directors 2022-2024
Jen Uchida, Bob Brock, Jeff Canclini, Ben Povall, Tiziano Bernard, Kevin Welch, Jesus Javier Fernando Orio, Rachel McFalls-Brown, Mark Mondt