Following is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about IT-BHU Global Alumni Association (IBGAA). It includes objectives of the organization, the organization structure, the decision making process, election and selection procedure, etc. A PDF of this document can be found here.
For official rules and guidelines, please refer to the document for IBGAA Bylaws. This FAQ document covers additional guidelines and explanations not covered in the Bylaws. All documents are subject to change from time to time as per changing requirements of our association.
Q-A1: What is the organization structure of our association?
Our association is open for all alumni, students, faculty and permanent staff of ITBHU and its predecessor colleges. For all organisational purposes there will be a Council of Representatives. Each batch/ branch (e.g. ECE 78) will send one person, already registered with the association, to the CoR. Students, faculty and non-teaching permanent staff will also send their representatives to CoR. The CoR will then elect the BoD (Board of Directors). The working group is made up of alumni volunteers who can nominate themselves for various tasks that the association plans to undertake.
Council of Representatives will be elected by registered members; and CoR group in turn, will in turn elect Board of Directors.
Board of Directors can decide about adding, deleting or modifying an alumni group by 2/3 voting majority. BoD will have 14 members, all elected members, although for the 1st council, they all are selected to form initial legal entity for our organization. The Council will handle the duties till March 2009, when the newly elected Council will take over. Thus the current council is just a stop-gap or temporary (transient or adhoc) arrangement. There will also be three ex-officio Directors (our Institute’s Director, professor In-Charge of Alumni Cell and President of IT Students Council or as appointed by the Institute's Director).
For the Council of Representatives or CoR. there is no upper limit on number of members it can have; but is expected to be around 100-200 at the beginning and 300-400 members when the Council is fully developed. The CoR members shall be selected from different class/year (batch) and dept. / branches. The CoR members will elect Board of Members by voting.
The general body of registered members will nominate members to CoR. CoR members are part of larger Volunteer Team. A member of Volunteer Team may or may not be a member of CoR. Only members of Volunteer Team (of which CoR is a part) can stand for election for the position of Director for Executive Council (Board of Directors).
Q-B1: Describe the Council of Representatives
The Council of Representatives (CoR) will be made up of representatives from students, alumni, faculty and non-teaching permanent staff. They will be selected by their respective groups. All candidates for CoR membership shall be registered members of our alumni association. All voters shall also be registered members of our association.
All CoR members can be selected by their group in their own way. They will be participating in the election process for selecting BoD members. The basic requirement for becoming CoR rep. is that he should be a registered alumnus and has worked as or should have desire to work as active volunteer. All members of CoR are considered as part of a larger Volunteer Team.
Q- B2: What is the requirement to become a member of Council of Representatives?
A member of CoR can be a student, alumnus, faculty or permanent staff of our institute. Moreover, he should have registered himself at our ITBHUGlobal website. Only registered members can participate for selection of CoR members. By definition, all CoR members and all Directors of Executive Council (Board of Directors) are registered members of our association.
He should also have some personal qualities to succeed as a class/batch representative. Besides being an active volunteer, he should have or willing to establish good rapport with IT-BHU community, including students, alumni, faculty and institute. He should be able to devote at least few hours each month for the organization. This includes participating in teleconference, discussion, exchange of emails, suggesting ideas, visiting institute, alumni projects, etc.
Q- B3: What is the selection process for CoR?
The selection process is as follows:
The selection process can be either Online Voting System (OVS) or straightforward selection by respective group and decision forwarded to Election Officer. The Online Voting System is optional and subject to its availability. The advantage of OVS shall be that everyone shall be able to participate and votes received by each candidate can be viewed after the election process is officially over. The low votes for a candidate can be either due to low participation by voters or low popularity of the candidate.
The Election Officer will be selected by Board of Directors prior to election. He should a person of good standing and acceptable to the majority participating in voting process. He could be a CoR member or a member of volunteer team or from Board of Directors during his duty as Election Officer. His decision will be final and binding to all.
The expected selection process for choosing reps. is as follows:
The Executive Council will send a circular to all registered members of the association about the intention of election for member for Council. The procedure for different categories is as follows:
For Alumni group
There will be one representative per branch per year. For example, all B. Tech/ M. Tech. / PhD students with Electrical Engineering degree in 2003 will vote for a single 2003 electrical candidate. Since BoD members are also considered as CoR members, a BoD member from say, Mining 2002 batch means that no other candidates can stand for the election for that branch and batch.
Alumni can cast only one vote, that too for their branch and year only. For example alumni of chemical 1977 can vote only for the representative from chemical 1977 group. If there is no candidate from the group, they cannot vote to other branch/year candidate.
If there are more than one candidate from the same branch and year, the candidate with more number of votes will be declared as winner. If there are equal votes to multiple candidates within the same branch/year group, the decision of Election Officer shall be final and binding.
For Students group
There will be one representative per branch. For example, all B. Tech/ M Tech/ PhD students studying during 2008-2009 academic year will vote for a single 2008 electrical candidate. There are 16 branches (corresponding to 16 departments/schools) and there will be 16 student representatives to the Council. The student representatives shall be preferably from 2nd year or 3rd year students, to be decided by students. Students group can have election every year to represent students from that particular academic year
For Faculty Group
There will be one faculty representatives from each department. Thus there will be a maximum of 16 representatives from 16 departments (including schools and applied sciences).
For Non-teaching staff
Non-teaching permanent staff (such as staff from library, workshop, etc.) can send two representatives (total of two from all non-teaching staff) to the Council.
The CoR members will be selected every two years. The first selection for 2008 will be complete by September. The next selection should be complete by September 2010. There is a provision in bylaws in which Board of director can decide to hold annual by-election (if necessary) for the CoR members, such as Student group, which will select representatives for the council for the academic year.
For ex-Directors of BoD
If a person moves out of the Board, he may choose to remain on the CoR if he is chosen by his constituency for the relevant period of time.
The CoR members will be selected every two years. The first selection for 2008 is expected to be completed by September. The next selection should be complete by September 2010. There is a provision in bylaws in which Board of director can decide to hold annual by-election (if necessary) for the CoR members, such as Student group, which will select representatives for the council for the academic year.
Q-B4: What is expected role and timeline for the Council?
The Council will be very useful in running of our alumni association. Among its possible uses are:
It will serve as a connecting link between alumni association and different alumni batches. It is much easier to deal with a small group of council members than with the large body of alumni. The Executive Council (BoD) will receive feedback from alumni through CoR and pass on the decisions back to alumni body. BoD will frequently ask opinions from Council Representatives on important matters.
The CoR will be helpful in executing alumni projects. It will let know the views of individual class/groups to BoD in real-time. It will help collection of funds from alumni and pass on to the treasurer, if decided.
The CoR members will pass on any concern/ questions from different class to EC, resulting in prompt action on the matter.
The CoR will elect the members for BoD by online voting on our website. During the election, seven directors will be replaced. The election rules are to be further refined.
It is hoped that CoR will start function by end of September 2008, so that it can used for planning and execution of alumni projects. Then it can also be used for election of Board of Directors early next year. The announcement of general election will be made by the end of 2008. The election will take place in January/February and the new Board of Directors will be effective from 1st April 2009.
Q- C1: Describe Executive Council.
The 14-member Executive Council, known as Board of Directors (BoD), consists of seven distinct groups of Directors. There will be pair of (main and deputy) directors for President, Secretary, Treasurer, External Affairs, Institute Affairs, Website and Reunions. This way all major functions and responsibilities are clearly defined. In addition, the directors will also be assigned additional responsibilities from time to time, as necessary.
Out of above, the 3 (President, Secretary and Treasurer) are defined as Executive Officers as per the New Jersey State law, where our association is registered. They have wide ranging legal powers to represent the association to the state government. At the same time, they are also responsible for legal problem faced by the association and are answerable to the state government. In addition, there are three ex-officio directors as described before. The ex-officio Directors do not have voting power, but act as advisor to BoD in respective subject matter. They remain in power as long as they hold legal/authoritative positions at our institute.
Q- C2: How is the election of BoD held?
The election for the Board of Directors (Board) will be held each year. Out of total 14 positions, half of the positions shall be up for election each year. For the first-ever election (planned for early 2009), all the 14 positions are available for election. The election also gives the existing Directors from the Board the opportunity to resign, if they do not want to continue with the position held so far, for any reason.
The candidates standing for the position for the board member are expected to be involved in some form of alumni activities. Hence it is necessary to have candidates from Volunteer Team (CoR group is subset of Volunteer Team).
An election candidate has to show his preference for a particular post, such as for external affairs. Then he will run the election for deputy director, external affairs. Similarly all 7 posts of deputy directors will be open for election. Based on outcome of voting, the candidate with maximum votes will be chosen for that particular position. If the votes are equal, then decision of Election Officer shall be final and binding. The Election Officer shall be chosen preferably from the Volunteer Team. He should NOT be holding any position for which the elections are being held. If no one stands for the election for the particular deputy director’s post, then both director and deputy director will continue their posts.
After a candidate is elected for the deputy director’s post, the deputy director will move to the corresponding director’s post and the director will leave the Board (BoD). The Director who leaves the Board can remain as member of CoR for next two years, as explained in B3 above. Thus the flow will be CoR member- to deputy director; deputy director – to director; director out of Board. This will ensure that a person will serve the Board for at least two years, and the transition is gradual, and the experience of deputy director is available to the board.
Q-D1: Provide details about list of registered members.
The list of registered members includes alumni, students, faculty and permanent non-teaching staff, who have registered their names on our official website, www.itbhuglobal.org. The list is arranged branch-wise and year/batch-wise.
To access our registered members’ database, you must be a registered member of our organization, as login needed to access it. Once you are logged in, open the link for “Search Alumni Data Base” and search according to your preference.
Currently, there are about 6,200 alumni registered on our database. It is estimated that there are a total of about 14,000 alumni from all the batches.
Q-D2: Provide details about current directors.
The current Executive Council (BoD) is only temporary till new team takes over by March 2009. The list of directors is at this page.
In My opinion, Since we are going thru' this effort (4-6 months) of creating a CoR
For Alumni:
Since Lots of folks are overseas,
There shall be 2 reps for each year/Branch(if possible)
#1 - India
November 22, 2008 11:55 AM#2 - Overseas