Elections postponed to fall 2020

June 2020

Elections postponed to fall 2020
Cynthia Eaton


	The FA has decided to postpone the spring 2020 elections until early in the fall 2020 semester due to the public health crisis that swept our region.

Remember back in February when I announced it was election season in the FA and shared a neat and tidy calendar of deadlines?

Yeah. That was before a global pandemic upended all of our lives.

The FA elections committee realized that once Governor Cuomo's New York on Pause order meant we'd no longer have access to campus, we couldn't run our elections as we've done every spring in the FA. As you know, the FA mails ballots in any college-wide constituencies but for department- or area-based constituencies, elections typically take place with a ballot box in the department office.

After consulting with the elections committee at New York State United Teachers, our parent union, we learned that because no officers or delegates were up for election this year (officers and delegates are elected in odd-numbered years for two-year terms), we had a choice to either conduct all elections by mail or delay the elections until the fall semester.

We went with the latter. At the time we thought we might be back on campus in the fall—and the college still hasn't announced a decision about this. Also, mindful of all those ballots to be counted in person during the height of the pandemic, we felt it was safer to delay. And, finally, we worried that the extra labor and stress of the semester might result in lower return rates and even more stress on the elections team who'd have to count those ballots.

Thus, the spring 2020 elections will be held early in the fall semester. If the college announces that we'll still be working remotely, all of the elections for which there are multiple nominations will be conducted by mail. If we are on campus, all elections will follow the usual procedures.

Nominations for some of the following positions were received before the original April 9 deadline. But since the deadline came after the closure of campuses and the scramble to shift to remote working, we will open up nominations again in the fall and add those to the list. Please look for the new timeline in the September issue of The WORD.

As a reminder, below are the positions that are up for election.

Full-Time Representatives

Ammerman Campus

Music, Visual Arts, Theatre, Philosophy, Women's Studies (Alex Nohai-Seaman)

Nursing, Health and Human Services, Phys Ed (Marlene Kellner)

Biology and Physical Sciences (Matt Pappas)

Accounting, Business Administration, Business Information Systems, Legal Studies (Kevin McNamara)

English (David Clark)
Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Technology (Mike Simon)

Eastern Campus

Library, Humanities, Counseling (Mary Schafer)

Grant Campus

Nursing, Health Science, Phys Ed, Veterinary Science (Alice Tobin)

Library, Counseling, Media (Tara Fagan)

Humanities (vacant)

In the case of at-large college-wide, constituent-based PA representatives as well as the adjunct representatives, the FA Elections Committee will conduct elections.

College-wide Constituent-based PA & Specialist Representatives

Technical Areas, Instructional Centers (Kevin Wirth)

Adjunct Representatives