Graduate Election Procedures
Last Updated 04/30/2023
These guidelines govern the elections and voting procedures of the graduate students in the department of sociology. This document is based on the faculty’s election procedures and graduate student feedback provided at two town halls taking place in April 2023. These procedures were voted on by a quorum of graduate students and adopted on May 5th 2023.
Contents
1. Position Announcement
2. Nomination
3. Nomination Response
4. Campaigning
5. Election
6. Election Results
Terminology
Ad hoc committee refers to a department committee created to respond to a distinct need in the department. This type of committee is not regularly occurring in that it may dissolve after the issue spurring its creation has been addressed.
Campaigning refers to actions taken by a candidate or by those supporting a candidate in a given election to encourage other graduate students in the sociology department to vote for them.
Candidate refers to any graduate student who received at least one nomination for a given committee position in the nomination survey and who accepted their nomination.
Committee chair refers to the faculty member in charge of the department committee.
Graduate representatives refers to the primary graduate representative to faculty and the alternate graduate representative to faculty in the sociology department.
Graduate student contact library refers to a list of the official university email addresses of every current graduate student in the sociology department. This list is provided by department administrators.
Listserv refers to the email distribution list that includes all graduate students as well as department administration, staff, and several faculty members usually serving as directors. Graduate students do not have the ability to send emails directly to the Listserv. Only designated administrators, staff, and faculty can send emails directly to the Listserv.
Nomination period refers to the time window between the announcement of the committee position and the delivery of notifications of nomination.
Nominee refers to any graduate student who received at least one nomination for a given committee position in the nomination survey.
Notification of nomination refers to an email sent to graduate students receiving a nomination for a given position.
Personalized links distribution method refers to a way of sending out the online survey platform survey, where the online survey platform makes an unique hyperlink for every person in the graduate student contact library.
Recurring committee refers to a department committee that is up for election every year and that is not expected to dissolve.
1. Position Announcement
a. Content
The graduate representatives are responsible for announcing the opening of a committee position for election. Announcement of an open committee position will be accompanied with a description of the committee position(s) to be filled and the number of graduate students serving on the committee(s) will be identified. If a position is on a recurring committee, its description will be based on the feedback of the previous person fulfilling the role and/or the statement of responsibilities provided by the committee chair. If a position is on an ad hoc committee, its description will be based on a statement of anticipated responsibilities from the committee chair and/or alternative faculty member otherwise involved in the creation of the committee. Given the variable nature of committee composition and department needs, the description of the position(s) will be explicitly identified as subject to change. The announcement will include a timeline of the nomination and election periods, with deadlines and dates using CST time zone (i.e. 04/20/2023 5:00 CST). Deadlines should not fall on Saturday or Sunday unless turnaround time for the election is limited and no other options are available.
b. Delivery
The graduate representatives are responsible for distributing the announcement of an open committee position vis-à-vis the department administration and/or select faculty members with access to the Listserv.
c. Timing
The graduate representatives receive requests from the faculty for graduate committee positions to be filled. The graduate representatives are responsible for delivering the announcement of the committee position at their earliest convenience to allocate the maximum possible time to the nomination and election periods. Given the variable nature of the urgency in the request for committee positions to be filled, no strict deadline will be enforced. The announcement of an open committee position marks the beginning of the nomination period.
2. Nomination
a. Content
The graduate representatives are responsible for creating the nomination survey in the online survey platform. One survey can include a call for nominations for more than one committee position. The survey will be configured to accept multiple submissions. There are no restrictions on the number of people a respondent can nominate for a given position. Graduate students can nominate themselves. The nomination survey will be accompanied with a description of the committee position(s) to be filled and the number of graduate students serving on the committee(s) will be identified.
b. Delivery
The graduate representatives are responsible for distributing the nomination survey as an anonymous link vis-à-vis the department administration and/or select faculty members with access to the Listserv. This survey format and distribution will not record any identifying information with the response.
c. Timing
The graduate representatives are responsible for delivering the nomination survey for the open committee position at their earliest convenience to allocate the maximum possible time to the nomination and election periods. Given the variable nature of the urgency in the request for committee positions to be filled, no strict deadline will be enforced. Deadlines should not fall on Saturday or Sunday unless turnaround time for the election is limited and no other options are available.
d. Eligibility
Graduate students that are currently enrolled in the department of sociology are eligible to be nominated. Graduate students can occupy only 2 committee positions at a time, including both recurring and ad hoc committee positions. A graduate student occupying 2 positions already is not eligible to be nominated for an additional position.
3. Nomination Response
a. Content
The graduate representatives are responsible for contacting the nominees after the close of the nomination period by sending an individual notification to each nominee. The nomination notification will be accompanied with a description of the committee position(s) they have been nominated for and the number of graduate students serving on the committee(s) will be identified. The notification will include a deadline for their response to the nomination. The timeline will include deadline dates using CST time zone (i.e. 04/20/2023 5:00 CST). The graduate representatives will send a follow-up email to all nominees who do not respond within 24 hours of the nomination response deadline. The follow-up will reiterate the response deadline date using CST time zone (i.e. 04/20/2023 5:00 CST).The follow-up will state that if the nominee does not respond by the deadline, they will be assumed to have rejected their nomination.
b. Delivery
The graduate representatives will send an individual notification of nomination and follow-up to nonrespondent nominees will be delivered to the university email address of each graduate student receiving at least one nomination.
c. Timing
The graduate representatives are responsible for delivering the notification of nomination to the nominees at their earliest convenience to allocate the maximum possible time to the nomination and election periods. Given the variable nature of the urgency in the request for committee positions to be filled, no strict deadline will be enforced. The graduate representatives are responsible for delivering the follow-up to nonrespondent nominees within 24 hours before the nomination response deadline. Deadlines should not fall on Saturday or Sunday unless turnaround time for the election is limited and no other options are available.
d. Eligibility
Graduate students can occupy only 2 committee positions at a time. A graduate student occupying 2 positions already cannot accept a nomination for an additional position. A graduate student cannot accept nominations for more than 2 positions in a given election. It is the responsibility of the graduate student, not the representatives, to keep track of eligibility.
4. Campaigning
a. Restrictions
Campaigning is optional. Candidates who wish to campaign should not attempt to post on the Listserv, and should instead post campaign materials in the sociology graduate student GroupMe.
5. Election
a. Content
The graduate representatives are responsible for creating the election survey in the online survey platform. The election will be conducted using a survey on an online survey platform. The graduate representatives will construct the survey. One survey can include a vote for more than one committee position. The survey question for each open committee position will include the names of each candidate as they are listed on the department website (unless indicated otherwise). When more than one graduate student will serve on the committee, the survey will indicate how many candidates a respondent should vote for.
b. Delivery
The graduate representatives are responsible for distributing the election survey. The election survey will be distributed to the online survey platform’s contact library using the personalized links distribution method. The online survey platform will generate and send unique hyperlinks to each graduate student’s official University email address as it is listed in the contact library. The email with the survey link will be accompanied with a description of the committee position(s) to be filled and the number of graduate students serving on the committee(s) will be identified. The email will include a timeline of the election period, with deadlines dates using CST time zone (i.e. 04/20/2023 5:00 CST). The email graduate students receive may appear to be sent from the graduate representative (i.e. “From: Jane Doe”), and the sender’s address will be janedoe@qemailserver.com. The emails sent to individual graduate students are not sent from the graduate representative’s email and are thus not visible in the graduate representative’s outbox (sent mail). The graduate representative will not have access to the individual survey links that are distributed. This method, when combined with the anonymize responses setting, will restrict each graduate student in the department to one survey response without recording any of their personally identifiable information. Based on the information that the online survey platform does record, the graduate representatives will be able to see whether each graduate student in the online survey platform contact library started the survey, finished the survey, did not respond to the survey, or did not receive the survey because the email did not send properly. The online survey platform contact library will be updated by the graduate representatives at the beginning of each semester to ensure only currently enrolled students are able to participate in the election.
c. Timing
The graduate representatives are responsible for delivering the election survey at their earliest convenience to allocate the maximum possible time to the election period. The annually occurring election must take place before the first faculty meeting of the fall semester (September). Given the variable nature of the urgency in the request for committee positions to be filled, no strict deadline will be enforced. Deadlines should not fall on Saturday or Sunday unless turnaround time for the election is limited and no other options are available.
d. Eligibility
Graduate students that are currently enrolled as full- or part-time students in the department of sociology are eligible to vote.
6. Election Results
a. Content
The graduate representatives are responsible for determining and distributing the results of the vote to the graduate students in the sociology department. For committee positions with only one graduate student, the candidate receiving the greatest number of votes will be declared the winner. For committee positions with more than one graduate student, winners will be decided according to their rank-order of votes-received corresponding to the number of required graduate students serving on the committee (i.e. 3 graduate students serve on a given committee, so the top 3 candidates in that vote are declared winners). The names of the winner(s) along with their respective share of the total votes cast will be shared with graduate students. If a candidate in the election wishes to know how many votes they received, they may submit an email request to the graduate representatives. The graduate representatives will share with a candidate making this request the percent of all votes that were cast for them.
b. Run-off elections
In the event that a vote includes more than seven candidates for a given committee position, the initial vote will be distributed with the explicit statement that a runoff vote will take place after the close of the initial vote. In the event that a vote results in a tie, a runoff vote will take place after the close of the initial vote.
c. Delivery
Announcement of the results of the vote will be delivered by the graduate representatives vis-à-vis the department administration and/or select faculty members with access to the Listserv.
d. Timing
The results of the election will be shared with the graduate students in the sociology department within 3 days of the vote deadline. Deadlines should not fall on Saturday or Sunday unless turnaround time for the election is limited and no other options are available.