Robert's Rules of Order/Wright State University Lake Campus/Straw poll

The problem: An academic senate wishes that the administration be present for only a restricted amount of time. The question is how to democratically choose that time without lengthy discussion.

I prefer that the administration attends the next senate meeting for

0       5       10       20       40       60

minutes (circle choice).

Solution: At the end of each meeting, faculty members circle their preferred time-allotment from a list of suggested time intervals, as shown in the box to the right. The president then places the median time on the next meeting's agenda.

Implementation: There is no need for a suspension of the rules if this is an informal agreement to conduct a straw poll after the meeting is adjourned. The poll carries no weight because the agenda is made by the president and can be amended at the beginning of the next meeting.

Constraints imposed by the bylaws and Robert's rules

The bylaws cannot be changed unilaterally by many faculty senates. For our purposes, motions passed by the senate are effectively limited to

1. Statements of intent: It is the will of the senate that ...
2. Letters or messages: Dear sir, we invite ...
3. The agenda for the current meeting (The agenda may be modified by the senate at any time).

All of these motions are easily rescinded, the first two by simple majority vote.

Links

• Wikiversity: Robert's Rules of Order (short and sweet)
• Wikipedia:Robert's Rules of Order (long and boring)

Outcome of experiment

This represented an actual situation that occurred in an October 2015 meeting at WSU-Lake Campus. The senate selected 10 minutes for the next meeting. But instead of holding a straw vote after every meeting, it will probably prove better to hold one only if evidence for a need to change this limit emerges.