Orientation for New CCSC Board Members

CCSC Board of Directors

The CCSC board is composed of five officers and regional representatives from each of the ten regions. Officers are President, Vice President/President Elect (who also serves as board secretary), Treasurer, Publications Chair (who is Journal editor), and Membership Secretary. Current members are listed at CCSC Board Members together with the expiration date of their current term. New members take office on August 1, the start of our fiscal year. Additionally, there may be some appointed positions, non-voting members who serve in support positions at the pleasure of the board, again listed at the same site. (The CCSC Journal appears six times a year and each issue includes a listing of the board as well.)

Several years ago, Bob Neufeld prepared a pictorial board directory, particularly for new members and we’ve attempted to keep it up to date. The current version is Board Picture Directory.

Overview

Bylaws and standing rules for the Consortium provide full detail on the structure and operation of CCSC. This document is in part an attempt to summarize parts of the bylaws but it is directed more toward filling in some of the pieces that long-time board members take for granted, directing newer board members toward online resources, etc. Considerable attention is devoted to the biannual board meetings in their current form.

Meetings

The fall board meeting is held in conjunction with one of the five fall regional conferences, meeting on the Thursday evening and Friday forenoon before the start of a conference. The spring board meeting is usually held on the Wednesday evening at the start of SIGCSE and at the SIGCSE site. Additionally, the annual meeting of the Consortium occurs on the Friday of SIGCSE. A listing of past board meeting locations and projection of future sites may be found at the Board Minutes page.

We would encourage you to peruse minutes of the most recent fall and spring board meetings both to get a feeling for the nature and flow of these meetings as well as to familiarize yourself with recent agenda items before the board.

Conducting Business

A significant amount of board business is conducted by email between meetings. This often includes approval of regional budgets. For such items, three business days are allowed for discussion and two more for voting, with details included with each motion. When you take office, your email address will be added to a group list, , which goes to all voting and non-voting board members. Additionally, you may find useful the addresses of , , and . At www.ccsc.org, there is also a "Contact Us" link, , for general use. Those messages are routed to the Vice President, who also has the address .

Responsibilities of Regional Representatives

In addition to serving as full members of the Board of Directors of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges, regional representatives are the primary link between the national organization and the individual regions. Regions tend to operate somewhat autonomously but under certain guidelines and regional bylaws which are approved by the Consortium. Some requests and information items from officers are addressed directly to the appropriate regional officers; others are communicated through the group board email list.

Regional representatives are requested to prepare a regional report for each board meeting. The board secretary will request reports to be assembled into a board packet and distributed in advance of each board meeting. In addition to consulting with your predecessor, you will find previous regional reports in the board meeting minutes at the Board Minutes page. After the board meeting, it will be helpful if you find a way to report back to your region, perhaps at your conference or by email to your regional committee.

A very important duty for regional representatives is to be certain that your regional information at the Regions page is correct and kept current. Some communication such as budget proposal requests goes directly to a regional officer based on the information posted at this site and serious delays can result if it isn’t kept up to date.

As you have time, you will want to read about our National Partners program, a program that provides benefits to the Consortium budget as well as to regions. The best way for your region to fulfill part of its obligation to partners is to simply link to this site where the current listing is located. We also derive support from SIGCSE (shown at the bottom of the Conference Calendar) and UPE (shown at the bottom of the Student Contests page). Again there is a request to give credit to those organizations for their support of our work.

Meeting Logistics and Reimbursements

Travel Arrangements: It is your responsibility to make arrangements for travel to and from board meetings. Being a non-profit organization, CCSC asks that we travel as economically as feasible. It is requested that travel support available from your employer be applied first. Ordinarily both regional conferences and SIGCSE will have recommendations re. travel and lodging. It is possible to work together with the treasurer to have your airfare paid directly by CCSC rather than having it reimbursed later.

Several weeks prior to a meeting, a form will be circulated among board members requesting each person to report plans for travel and lodging in order to help coordinate local travel and keep costs down.

Lodging: As with travel, please make your own arrangements for lodging at the conference site. Any guarantee to hold your room until arrival is your responsibility. During the conference, a CCSC officer will pay for your lodging at the hotel for the approved number of nights. (Since the spring board meeting at SIGCSE is on Wednesday night and the annual meeting is on Friday and board members are expected to participate in both, three nights lodging is usually provided.) Meal and other incidental expenses at the hotel are the responsibility of each board member. Full details of the reimbursement schedule and per diem are included in the Travel Reimbursement Form. The president ordinarily completes the Travel Authorization form (third sheet) and the requesting member completes the second sheet subject to the Instructions in the first sheet.

Registrations: At the fall board meeting, board members are encouraged to stay and participate in the regional conference. The Membership Secretary will take care of your conference registration for this at no cost to the board member (unless it is your home region). Registration at SIGCSE is your own responsibility and is not reimbursed by CCSC.

Other

As other questions arise, here are a few links that may prove useful:

Document originally prepared by Bob Neufeld
– last updated August 2014