Please VOTE in IEEE Election - AGAINST Constitutional Amendment and FOR your Division Director - Elect

 

Dear SSCS Member,

You may already have, or will shortly be receiving a ballot to vote in the IEEE elections.  This is a very important election that needs your vote for two reasons.  We urge you to make sure you cast your vote.  Ballots must be received by IEEE on or before October 3rd.  Ballots and details can be accessed at:

http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/election/election_index.html?WT.mc_id=dhtml_vot16_acc

The first of the two issues we wish to address is the proposed IEEE Constitutional Amendment or “IEEE2030” as you may have seen prompted on IEEE media.

The SSCS AdCom and we are in unanimous agreement to recommend a vote AGAINST the proposed Constitution Amendment.

 The intent of this Amendment is to streamline the IEEE’s governance structure. We believe that the proposed amendment will not accomplish this and may lead to uncertain future changes at IEEE that can take away the input from volunteers into the governance structure. We believe that the current structure serves its purpose well, because

 

a.       It guarantees geographical representation on the board of directors (BOD) by requiring that each region has a representative on the BOD

b.      It guarantees technical diversity since each Technical Division is represented by its Director on the board.

 

Our concern is that the proposed changes do away with this representation and states that (Sect 5): “The number of Directors, terms of office of Directors elected by the Assembly, and the method of election and eligibility requirements shall be specified by the Bylaws taking into consideration various diversity factors including, but not limited to, geographic and technical diversity.”

The problem with this statement is that the IEEE Bylaws are not known at this time and do not need the involvement of the full IEEE membership for approval. Thus the danger is that input of volunteers in the governance can be considerably weakened.

For these reasons, the SSCS leadership advises IEEE members to vote NO on the Constitutional amendment.

We impress upon you that your individual vote is of paramount importance in determining this urgent matter.

More information can be found at the following links:

Views of IEEE President Shoop and Past-President Michel give the reasons why members should vote FOR the amendment:  http://theinstitute.ieee.org/resources/ieee-news/ieee-in-2030-modernizing-the-governance-structure-for-a-fastpaced-future .

Arguments made AGAINST can be found here: http://ieee-npss.org/proposed-ieee-constitutional-amendment/ and https://ieee2016blog.wordpress.com

The second issue we would draw your attentions to during this voting and election cycle is the election for Division 1 Director – our representative position on the IEEE Board.  Our Society is part of IEEE’s Division I, along with Electron Devices and Circuits and Systems.  We strongly encourage you to cast your vote for your chosen candidate.

 

 

Best Regards,

Jan Van der Spiegel President SSCS

Bill Bidermann Immediate Past President SSCS