ReConnection Committee
Structures in Other States

Summary of responses to question posed to AAUW State Presidents e-mail list about how boards have been streamlined:

Including North Carolina, we have responses from 17 states. [AL, CA, DE, FL, HI, IL, IA, KY, ME, MI, MN, NJ, NM, NY, NC, SC, TX.] Of those, 7 have branch presidents (BPs) on their boards. One (KY) is in the process of recommending a change to having two BPs represent the rest and adding a provision that would let some fraction of the branches call a state board meeting. One (SC) has just one board meeting a year, and the executive committee (all elected and appointed officers) meets between conventions. The remaining 5 states have the following number of branches: 6 (DE), 7 (HI), 9 (ME), 15 (AL), 26 (NC).

Of the 10 that do not include the BPs on the state board, 5 explicitly mentioned board members who represented a part of the state (e.g. "district representatives"). One (TX) said that their "District Directors" had "second jobs" and so covered many of the "appointed officer" positions on other boards. One (NM) has "Leadership Team" meetings in different parts of the state for the Board and the (14) BPs.

Of the 4 that have neither BPs nor "district representatives" on the state board, two (IA, MI) explicitly mentioned a goal of geographic diversity in the board composition. One (NY) mentioned a practice of quarterly communications from each state board member to the branch counterparts.

In addition, 5 explicitly mentioned "off board" positions (either traditional appointed positions or special projects). In some cases, making positions "off board" served to reduce the size of the voting body; in others the goal appeared to be to allow some people to make significant contributions without feeling compelled to attend board meetings.

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Last modified
15-Oct-2002

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