Constitution improvements (meta-issue)

[ehashman]

In #112, it became clear that there were too many issues raised with the constitution to address in a single pull request. Hence, I merged that PR into a separate branch such that we can address issues one-by-one.

Here is a list of known issues/requests that we've seen thus far for the constitution. For each one, feel free to make a single issue to track it if it requires extensive discussion.

• Fix keypair in metadata from hidden: true to status: hidden
• Wording: should we say "Director of Women in CS" or "Chair of the WiCS Committee"?
• Should an individual be able to serve as Chair for two or more consecutive terms?
• Which committee members can be on co-op?
• What do we do when no returning member wishes to be Chair? (PR Cleanup for selection of Chair and other member roles #146)
• What do we do when there are too many interested and qualified returning and new committee members? (PR Cleanup for selection of Chair and other member roles #146)
• Do we need "dissolution" and "acceptable use of committee resources" sections? (PR Add "acceptable use of resources" section #147)
• Add a formal procedure for choosing communication and organizational technologies (PR Add policy for adopting new organizational and communication techs #137)
• Add more detail in the interview procedure (PR Cleanup for selection of Chair and other member roles #146)
• Add a responsibility for all committee members to identify when others are falling behind on their responsibilities and a suggested script/procedure to ensure they get help (PR Responsibilities for chair and committee #143)
• Additional value: Accountability
• Additional value: Consensus-building
• Add a section on volunteers and require the next term's first volunteer meeting to be planned before interviews begin (PR Add volunteers section to constitution #144)
• Add responsibility for chair: resolving internal committee disputes (PR Responsibilities for chair and committee #143)
• Update value: Technical Excellence (PR Clarify value of "technical excellence" #148)
• What happens when a committee member resigns? Should there be a procedure for removing a committee member? (PR Add procedure for resigning and removal of members #152)
• How do we enforce this document?
• Expand scope of purpose and vision: change 'in' to 'interested in' (PR Fix various typos in the constitution #151)
• Add Fatema's responsibility for Chair (PR Add responsibility for Chair, per @fboxwala #153)

Feel free to suggest more in comments, I will update this issue as progress is made.

[fboxwala]

re. Director vs. Chair from Jo:

HI Fatema,
The name of WICS is still the Women in Computer Science Committee, and I’m currently the chair of that committee. What is new is that the School started a new Director-level position in its administration: the Director of Women in Computer Science, and I currently served in that role as well.
I expect that it will normally be the case that the Director of Women in Computer Science will chair the WICS committee, but they are technically two different roles.

I think the person we want to refer to is still chair of the committee. What think?

[ehashman]

Agreed, re: Chair Fatema. Let's change all instances of Director to Chair.

[ehashman]

Do we need "dissolution" and "acceptable use of committee resources" sections?

I feel like "no" for the dissolution section for now, and that we should have an "acceptance use of resources" section.

[ehashman]

Re: enforcement, most constitutions I've looked at don't have a specific clause, so I'll mark that as done.

I am going to address feedback in #146 to hopefully make it mergeable, submit a PR regarding committee members leaving (or their removal), and then my hope is that this can be read through over the weekend and can be ratified during the next meeting.

[fboxwala]

Wanted to add a responsibility for chair:

"To work with the secretary to ensure that members are able to complete their assigned tasks, and that the committee functions cohesively"

[ehashman]

Okay, so we're just waiting on the decisions on the two different wordings in #146. Once that's merged, this issue will be closed and we can make a pull request for the entire constitution into master.