CONSTITUTION OF FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION OF CHINESE STUDENTS AND SCHOLARS

ARTICLE I: NAME AND PURPOSE

Section l.  The name of this organization shall be: Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars. It will be referred to as FACSS hereafter.

Section 2. The purpose of FACSS shall be

-                      to provide effective means to help its members to adapt to American culture, and

-                      to promote Chinese culture to the community, and

-                      to enhance the involvement of its members in the community

ARTICLE II: MEMBERSHIP

Section l. Any full-time or part-time Chinese student, scholar, faculty/staff member is eligible to be a member of FACSS. The membership is also open to any student of University of Texas at Dallas, regardless of age, color, gender, handicapper status, height, marital status, national origin, political persuasion, race, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, or weight. Only UTD students may be officers and/or voting members.

Section 2. There are two types of members that we defined: active members and general members. All active members automatically have the rights that any general member has; but there are certain rights that are reserved for active members and not available to general members.

To be an active member, a person is committed to:

-                      pay the membership fee, and

-                      provide service for FACSS once a semester, and

-                      attend group meeting, and

-                      obey to the rules written in the constitution

and he/she has the following rights:

-                      to vote, and

-                      to speak for what he/she believes right during the meeting, and

-                      to get discount for any event that is organized by FACSS

To be a general member, you simply need to be on the FACSS email list.

ARTICLE III: OFFICERS

Section l.  The officers include: the president, the vice president, the treasurer, the general secretary, the public relation officer, the event board, and the new student board. The term of officers is one year.

Section 2. The president is nominated by the previous seating board. And he/she has the right to nominate the new executive board.

Section 3. The president has the following duties:

-                      represent the organization on official occasions;

-                      serve for one year from summer semester to the end of next spring semester unless he/she gets reelected;

-                      call general meeting and executive board meeting when needed;

-                      convene and preside at all meetings

The vice president has the following duties:

-                      help the president to plan and carry out events;

-                      help communication between the president and members

-                       other duties as assigned by the president

The treasurer has the following duties:

-                      create a budget and a breakdown for each event;

-                      report to the executive board on any budget-related question they might have;

-                      other duties as assigned by the president

The general secretary has the following duties:

-                      be responsible for all the paperwork that are needed for groups meetings and activities;

-                      keep written records of the important events in FACSS;

-                      other duties as assigned by the president

Public relation officer has the following duties:

-                      be responsible for publication of the organization and its events;

-                      recruit new members;

-                      other duties as assigned by the president

As a general rule, all the above individuals are required to come to the executive board meeting. If there is any reason that he/she can not attend the meeting, he/she needs to let the council know before the meeting.

Event board has the following duties:

-                      plan, organize and report on FACSS cultural events;

-                      other duties as assigned by the president

New student board has the following duties:

-                      organized airport pickups for new students;

-                      be responsible in the effort to help new students settle down

-                      other duties as assigned by the president

Section 4. An officer may be removed from the council when he/she fails to maintain membership in good standing, or fail to fulfill his/her duties as an officer as agreed by ½ of the council members, or so at any meeting by vote of the general membership.

ARTICLE IV: OPERATING PROCEDURES

Section l. The time and place of meetings shall be announced by the president. The general member meeting happens at least once a semester. The executive board meets twice a month or otherwise as decided by the council.

Section 2. A decision is reached when the majority of the meeting body agrees on it.

Section 3. FACSS is composed of general voting members and the executive board. The executive board shall consist of all executive officers, and shall perform the following duties:

-                      review and approve the expenditure of all funds

-                      review and approve any proposal made by the council member

-                      decide membership fee

Section 4. A full time UTD faculty member is to be asked as the organization advisor. He/she supervises the activities conducted by the group.

ARTICLE V: AMENDMENTS

Section l. With agreement of 1/10 of all the active members, or ½ of the executive board members, an amendment may be proposed.

Section 2. Whoever proposes the amendments needs to hand in a written copy to the general meeting.

Section 3. Amendments are approved when 2/3 or more of all the members agree.