Members Ratify Bylaws Change Enabling AGS to Conduct Business Electronically, Expand Nominating Committee, but Table Proposal Regarding Choice of President-Elect

Amendments to the American Geriatrics Society's bylaws that authorize the Society to conduct business electronically and expand its Nominating Committee won members' endorsement during the 2007 Annual Scientific Meeting in May. The membership, however, tabled a proposed amendment to the bylaws that would have allowed two candidates to run against one another for AGS president-elect each year.

Bringing AGS' bylaws into the 21st century, members voted to reword the policies so they explicitly state that AGS can conduct member business - holding Board elections, for example, or sending required notices to members - electronically. Though the bylaws didn't previously forbid electronic notices and communications, the AGS Board proposed changes to the policies that explicitly allow the Society to do so in an era of rapidly advancing means of electronic communication.

As a result of changes to bylaws concerning the Nominating Committee, the Committee will now include at last two non-physician members. A further bylaws change adds two members-at-large to the three at-large members now serving on the committee. In June, AGS will be soliciting nominations from the membership. Because two candidates will run for each new member-at-large seat on the Nominating Committee, a total of four candidates for the committee must be nominated. In addition to selecting candidates for president-elect, the Nominating Committee presents its unanimously agreed-upon slate for Board of Directors to members each year.

Members considered, but ultimately tabled, another proposed measure to allow a choice of two candidates for AGS president-elect starting next year. Election ballots have always offered only one name, selected by the AGS Nominating Committee, for president-elect. In keeping with the proposed bylaws change, members would have been able to choose between two candidates -- each from the same discipline -- selected by the committee. A candidate who is a nurse would have been able to run against another candidate who was a nurse, for example, or two physician candidates would have been able to run against one another. "This was an attempt to ensure that the Society's members had more of a choice when electing the President and also to ensure that members from other disciplines would have an opportunity to serve as President," explained incoming Board of Directors Chair Jane F. Potter, MD.

AGS President Todd Semla, PharmD noted that "the AGS Board had determined that in a competitive election, candidates should be drawn from the same discipline because the Society's interdisciplinary membership - although the fastest growing segment of membership - was still in its infancy. The Board is firmly committed to ensuring that the Society's leadership reflects its interdisciplinary membership."

A motion to amend the proposal so that the two candidates for president-elect could either be physicians or from any discipline other than medicine failed. A subsequent motion gave members an opportunity to express their views for or against competitive elections for president-elect. Members seemed to favor competitive elections. Ultimately, members voted in favor of a motion to have the Nominations Task Force reexamine the issue of selection of candidates for president-elect.