Board Restructure Proposal

PRESIDENTIAL TEAM:

President-Elect, President, Immediate Past President

BOARD MEMBERS:

Vice Presidents

1. Admissions Practices
2. Advocacy & Outreach
3. Communications
4. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
5. Finance
6. Inclusion, Access, & Success
7. Membership (x2)
8. Professional Development

Representatives to the Executive Board x3

See the side-by-side comparison of the current board structure and the proposed board structure below.

Download the PDF version of the current and proposed board structures.

LEADERSHIP TEAM

President-Elect, President, Immediate Past President, Executive Vice President for Finance, Executive Director (ex-officio)

Rationale

The Leadership Team will look largely as it currently does, with the addition of the Executive Vice President for Finance. The EVPF will not oversee a committee; rather, they will - in conjunction with the rest of the Leadership Team - be responsible for the fiscal oversight of the Association. They will work in concert with the other VPs and Subcommittee Chairs, to ensure that all concerned are briefed on the financial implications of any programming decisions by the board and/or Subcommittee Chairs. 

To reflect the importance of continuity in this position of Executive Vice President for Finance, it will have a three-year cycle, with the first year being an ‘elect’ year, which will overlap with the last year of the preceding EVPF’s term. While the EVPF-Elect will be an ex-officio member of the Leadership Team, they will enjoy full Executive Board voting privileges.

Calling this group the Leadership Team is a deliberate action; it denotes that the decisions being made at this level are not done solely by the presidents. Rather, the presidents work in conjunction with the EVPF, who provides fiscal oversight, and the Executive Director, who can, among other things, offer both the perspective of the Association’s previous actions and continuity as members of the Leadership Team cycle through their positions.

VICE PRESIDENTS

1. Admissions Practices
2. Communications
3. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
4. Global Affairs → Regional Council*
5. Member Engagement
6. Membership and Data
7. Professional Development
8. Support, Access, and Success 

Rationale

Looking largely like it does now, the Vice Presidents Team will make up the remainder of the board. There are a few changes to the current structure.

1. The current Vice President for Membership (and its attendant committees) would be split into two: Vice President for Membership and Data and Vice President for Member Engagement.
   1. Vice President for Membership and Data will assume the responsibility for processing membership applications and renewals and tracking membership data, specifically with regard to regional and institutional trends. They will also, on a regular basis, review the membership dues structure, in conjunction with the Leadership Team, to then be approved by the Executive Board (as laid out in the bylaws).
   2. Vice President for Member Engagement will assume the responsibility for onboarding new members, and - in conjunction with VP for Admissions Practices and introduce them to the ethical practices of our organization.
2. Vice President for Advocacy and Outreach will become the Vice President for Global Affairs.
   1. The current responsibilities, as outlined in the bylaws and P&P will remain.
   2. The VP for Global Affairs will also be the connection between the Regional Council (see section below) and the Executive Board.
3. To avoid repetition of ‘inclusion’ in two Vice Presidents’ titles, the Vice President for Inclusion, Access, and Success will become the Vice President for Support, Access, and Success. There will be no change in duties.

SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRS

Subcommittee Chairs will sit under each Vice President, assuming responsibility for overseeing finite pieces of the VP’s responsibilities, allowing the VPs to focus on both overall board initiatives as well as big-picture thinking within their own area of concern. While this will not facilitate the full conversion of the board from working to advisory, it is the first step in this process.

VPs will decide which/how many Subcommittee Chairs they need. It will be at their discretion as to how to set the ‘stagger’ of new Subcommittee Chair appointment terms. These will be written into our P&P instead of bylaws, to allow for the flexibility of being able to add/delete as the demands of the overall committee change.

REPRESENTATIVE TO THE EXECUTIVE BOARD

At the conclusion of the 2026-2027 board year, the position of Representative to the Executive Board will cease to be part of the Executive Board.

See the side-by-side comparison of the current board structure and the proposed board structure below.

Download the PDF version of the current and proposed board structures.

Regional Council (RC)

• The Regional Council will be under the Vice President for Global Affairs. 
• Regional Representation to support the work of the Board; 3-year term
• There will be a total of EIGHT Regional Representatives (Regions are currently divided using the World Map) with one representative per region. 
• Non-voting members can run for Regional Representative positions and ALL members can vote in this process.
• Members are only eligible to run for the position of Regional Representative for the region in which they live; similarly, members are only eligible to vote for the Regional Representative for the region in which they live. It is important to make this distinction vs. those who work in that region (for example, university representatives that recruit in those regions but whose universities are not situated within them) so that those on the ground would represent the region.
• The RC will meet a minimum of three times per year: twice virtually, once in-person (with the Executive Board) approximately one month prior to the annual conference
• The RC will meet once per year with the Executive Board as part of the retreat prior to the annual conference in July.

View the below images in a PDF: Proposed Regional Council

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DIVISION OF THE WORLD

While we currently use IIE’s six regions to divide the world (most notably for Regional Institutes), we felt that keeping those six regions would likely create situations where one country could dominate a region unnecessarily (the US in the Americas and China in East Asia, Southeast Asia, & Oceania). To that end, we have adopted and slightly amended the World Bank’s regions with which to divide the membership for Representatives. Regions are not set out in the bylaws. This, too, was done deliberately, to allow for flexibility: should the needs and/or population density of the membership change, the regions could be easily changed via Policy and Procedure amendments (done via a Board vote) rather than a bylaw vote (requiring membership approval). 

The regions are as follows, and numbered, rather than named. This decision was made so as not to impose any cultural/positional associations to the name (i.e. Southeast Asia - as relative to the US/Europe). Noting that NAFSA numbers their regions without any complaint, we also adopted this type of naming structure. Regions are deliberately numbered from the International Date Line, moving westward, again so as not to seemingly favor any one region by starting in a more arbitrary position.

Creating the Regional Council accomplishes two goals: to bring deliberate regional representation to the leadership structure of the Association and to widen member participation in leadership roles, by removing the need for voting membership for members to run or vote for these positions.

Additionally, by codifying the roles of Subcommittee Chairs under the Vice Presidents, we open another layer of leadership to members, allowing for different levels of commitment/expertise to be accommodated, as well as widening participation, as Subcommittee Chairs are not required to be voting members of the Association in order to serve.

According to our bylaws, any amendments go into effect immediately after they are passed. However, due to the complex nature of the changes to the leadership structure, some will not be able to be implemented immediately.

1. The three presidents will immediately assume any new responsibilities as outlined, should the changes pass the membership vote.
2. The Vice President for Finance will assume the new title of Executive Vice President for Finance, along with the new duties and be elevated to the Leadership Team immediately, should the changes pass.
   • The Finance Committee would sunset at the conclusion of the annual conference in Boston in July 2025.
3. The Vice President for Member Engagement and the Vice President for Membership and Data: Currently, our co-VPs for Membership roll off the Executive Board in 2025 (Craig Brown) and 2026 (Kim Tulloch Wynn).
   • Kim has another year in her service term and will be appointed to one of the two new VP positions dealing with membership to serve the remainder of her term. That VP position would then have a traditional election cycle in Spring 2026.
   • For the other VP for Membership role, we will appoint an eligible member to fill that role for the entirety of the three-year term, running a standard election in 2028 at the expiration of that term.
4. The three Representatives are tasked with setting up the Regional Council. This would include, but not be limited to the following:
   • Election structure
   • Nomination/application process. Staggering the terms of the first Representatives so the entire council doesn’t turn over at the same time.
   • Determine in-person interaction between Regional Council and Board (for example: mandatory attendance at annual conference?) and any funding support that may be necessary to facilitate this.
5. The Vice Presidents will identify the areas for which they wish to create Subcommittee Chairs, and appoint their first members to those positions by the end of the 2025 annual conference in Boston. As they do this, they set up the ‘stagger’ across their Subcommittee Chairs’ terms of service so that there is no wholesale turnover of all members in these positions at the same time.
   • The Board, in conjunction with the VP/EVP for Finance, will determine what, if any, financial support is available to Subcommittee Chairs, should they deem that in-person conference attendance is required.