Society for Research Synthesis M

Society for Research Synthesis Methodology

By-Laws of

The Society for Research Synthesis Methodology

ARTICLE I

The Society for Research Synthesis is incorporated in the State of California. The Corporation, in view of its name, will hereinafter be referred to as the Society.

ARTICLE II

The Society is organized and will at all times be operated for scientific purposes in the public interest as contemplated by Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or any revision of the Internal Revenue Code which shall succeed the aforesaid Section. More specifically, its purpose is to encourage the development of theory, method, and applications in research synthesis and associated topics.

The purpose of the Society shall be carried out by encouraging research and teaching in the area of its interest, by providing opportunities for thorough discussion and informal written communication among members, by encouraging international and interdisciplinary interactions, and by encouraging or making feasible adequate publication aimed at making research findings and technical concepts available to the interested public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Any journal published by the Society shall be an official organ of the Society with an officially appointed editor and advisory board appointed by the Board of Trustees.

ARTICLE III

1. There shall be a Board of Trustees of five persons, as follows:

a. Elected Trustees

(1) President

(2) Past President

(3) President-Elect

b. Appointed by Elected Trustees with the consent of the membership

(1) Secretary-Treasurer

c. Appointed by the President

(1) Chair of Local Arrangements

2. The Board of Trustees shall meet during the Annual Meeting and at other times during the year as necessary in their judgment. It is responsible for the main coordination of Society activities, for ruling on the constitutionality of all activities of the Society and its committees, for determining the location of the Annual Meeting, and for initiating activities consistent with the purposes of the Society as provided by the Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws. In case of the death, disability, or resignation of any of the members of the Board of Trustees during his/her term of office, the President shall appoint a successor to serve until elections are held at the next Annual Meeting.

At the Annual Meeting, the Elected Trustees shall appoint the following officers, subject to approval by the majority of the membership at the Annual Business Meeting.

a. The Secretary-Treasurer, during even-numbered years for a two-year term, effective 30 days after the Annual Meeting. The Secretary-Treasurer may serve multiple terms at the discretion of the Elected Trustees, subject to the consent of the membership.

3. It shall be the duty of the President to preside at the Annual Business Meeting and at the meetings of the Board of Trustees, to countersign all contracts and other instruments of the Society except checks, to exercise general supervision over the affairs of the Society, and to perform all such other duties incident to this office or required by vote of the members or Board of Trustees at any duly constituted meeting. Following the Annual Business Meeting, he/she shall appoint a Chair of Local Arrangements for the Annual Meeting of the following year.

4. The special duty of the Past President shall be to serve as Elections Chair, appointing committee members as necessary to help in this work.

5. The President-Elect shall serve as Program Chair, appointing committee members as necessary to help in this work. It shall be his/her duty to write to the membership four months prior to the next Annual Meeting to notify them of the general nature of the program for the next Annual Meeting, to send out a call for papers not later than two months prior to the Annual Meeting, to arrange the program, and to preside at the scientific parts of the Annual Meeting. In case of the death, disability, or resignation of the President, he/she shall immediately take over the duties of the President as well as those of the President-Elect and shall appoint an assistant who shall serve on the Board of Trustees until new elections to fill all vacancies are held at the next Annual Meeting.

6. It shall be the duty of the Secretary-Treasurer to keep minutes at the Annual Business Meeting and at meetings of the Board of Trustees, to be custodian of these minutes and of other records of the Society, to bring to the attention of the Board of Trustees and the membership such matters as he/she deems necessary, to conduct the official correspondence of the Society and of the Board of Trustees, to have custody of all funds and securities and to deposit the same in the name of the Society in such bank or banks as the membership or the Board of Trustees may direct, and to collect dues and other debts due the Society by all persons and organizations whatsoever. He/she shall have the authority to sign checks and drafts on behalf of the Society for the disbursements of funds for duly authorized purposes. He/she shall keep a full and complete record of all money received and all money paid out, shall at all reasonable times exhibit the books and accounts to any member of the Society, and shall perform such other duties as may be reasonably required by vote of the members or Board of Trustees at a duly constituted meeting. He/she shall serve as Membership Chair with the duties as outlined in Article V.

ARTICLE IV

1. The Elections Chair, who is also the Past President of the Society, shall appoint committee members as necessary to help in this work.

2. All elections of officers shall be conducted at the Annual Business Meeting by the Elections Chair. Following nominations made from the floor by paper ballot, elections shall be conducted by paper ballot. The Elections Chair shall announce the results of the elections prior to the close of the Annual Meeting.

3. Each year, an election will be held for a President-Elect, who in succeeding years will become President and Past President. These changes in Elected Trustees will occur 30 days after the Annual Meeting in each of those succeeding years.

ARTICLE V

1. To achieve the goal of intimate, consecutive, and technically advanced round table discussion at meetings of the Society, the number of active members shall be limited to 65.

2. Activities concerned with the status of members in the Society shall be handled by the Secretary-Treasurer serving as Membership Chair, assisted as necessary by the Board of Trustees. The Secretary-Treasurer shall administer the following provisions:

a. The subscription to any journal that the Society may establish is part of the annual dues.

b. The fiscal year for the Society is January 1 through December 31.

c. Dues statements for year X shall be sent out by the Secretary-Treasurer on or about October 1 of year X - 1.

d. Members are "in arrears" with respect to dues for year X if dues for that year are not paid by November 1 of year X.

e. Members are considered to have resigned if payment of dues for year X is not received by November 1 of year X + 1.

f. Dues statements shall include the contents of this section.

3. There are three kinds of membership in the Society: active, inactive, and emeritus. Among the privileges and duties of active members are the following: pay annual dues, attend and present papers at Annual Meetings, participate in Business Meetings, nominate other active or emeritus members for office in the Society, hold offices in the Society, vote in elections of the Society and upon issues calling for decision by the active and emeritus membership, serve on committees of the Society, and receive a subscription to any journal that the Society may establish. Inactive members have the following privileges and duties only: pay annual dues and receive a subscription to any journal that the Society may establish. Emeritus members have the same privileges and duties as active members, except that the Board of Trustees may reduce their dues, but has the option of making the amount of such reduced dues dependent on whether an emeritus member chooses to receive a subscription any journal that the Society may establish or declines such subscription.

While active members of the Society are elected by procedures set forth in Section 4 below, a member becomes inactive or emeritus in the following ways:

a. An active member who does not attend the Annual Meeting of the Society for three consecutive years (two consecutive years during the first two years of the Society’s existence) shall be assumed to have resigned from active membership, and the member shall be transferred by the Secretary-Treasurer to Inactive Member status. The Secretary-Treasurer shall write an active member who does not attend two consecutive Annual Meetings (one meeting in the first two years of the Society’s existence) to inform him/her of the contents of this section. A newly-elected member who does not attend an Annual Meeting during the three years immediately following election to active membership shall be transferred to Inactive Membership status. The Secretary-Treasurer shall write to persons elected to membership advising them of this provision.

An inactive member may write to the Secretary-Treasurer and request a change to active membership. Thereupon, the Secretary-Treasurer shall write (1) to inform him/her whether or not there currently exists a vacancy, and (2) if there is a vacancy, to require the member to be physically present at the next Annual Meeting and to present a paper at that meeting in order to make the change to active membership effective. A request for change to active membership status by an inactive member shall have priority over nominations for new members, if such request is received prior to the initiation of the nomination procedures described in Section 4 below and if a like request from the inactive member has not been defaulted upon previously.

b. An Active member upon reaching 65 years of age shall be transferred by the Secretary-Treasurer to Emeritus Membership status.

4. Upon determining that vacancies in the active membership exist, the Secretary-Treasurer shall invite each member to make by January 1 not more than two nominations, each accompanied by a statement on the qualifications of the nominee. In addition, any person not a member of the Society may self-nominate for membership in the Society. From the nominations and self-nominations, the Trustees shall prepare a slate including all nominees and self-nominees. By March 1, the slate shall be circulated to the membership for a vote, along with access to supporting documents (e.g., nominating letters, vitas). Each member may vote for as many candidates as are to be elected or one-half the number of nominees, whichever is greater. Persons on the slate shall be invited to join the society in the order of the size of the vote they receive. The Board of Trustees will have the deciding vote in the event of a tie. Invitations shall be extended until enough new members have joined the Society to fill the vacancies or until the votes for a candidate are less than one-fourth the number of members voting, whichever comes first. If a vacancy occurs in the year immediately following an election, and if the vote for a candidate not accepted for membership was larger than one-fourth the number of members voting, that candidate may be admitted to membership in the year immediately following the election, at the discretion of the Board of Trustees.

ARTICLE VI

1. The Society shall hold its Annual Meeting for at least three days each year. Except for Sections 2-7 below, the details of the program are left to the discretion of the Program Chair, who is also the President-Elect. He/she shall appoint committee members as necessary to help in this work.

2. The Annual Meeting will be held, insofar as possible, in aesthetically good and suitably quiet surroundings for uninterrupted and informal interaction.

3. A Local Arrangements Chair, appointed by the President, shall take care of reservations and other physical arrangements prior to and during the next Annual Meeting.

4 The program for the Annual Meeting will schedule approximately two hours for the Annual Business Meeting of the Society on the middle day(s) of the conference, to accommodate early leavers or latecomers.

5. With the exception of invited addresses or invited symposia, as much time shall be allotted to discussion as to the reading of formal papers, and both together shall not occupy more than nine hours a day. Invited addresses or invited symposia shall constitute no more than 8 hours of conference time.

6. Insofar as possible, the program shall allot equal time to substantive/application and methodological/statistical presentations.

7. Quality being considered guaranteed by membership in the Society, any active or emeritus member shall be allowed to present a paper within the limitations of Sections 4-6 above. If more papers are offered than can be handled, it shall be the Program Chair's responsibility to choose, by whatever procedures he/she deems appropriate, those papers to be presented, and/or to institute guidelines prescribing time limitations on some or all papers.

8. Other regional or special-topic meetings may be arranged with the approval of the Board of Trustees by members organized into ad hoc committees. These should, if possible, avoid dates within two months of the Annual Meeting.

ARTICLE VII

1. A valuable function of the Society may be to develop publication channels or other arrangements for interchange and distribution of research papers in addition to any journals that the Society may establish.

2. Through the activities of committees formed for special purposes, it shall be a further function of the Society to encourage the development of teaching and research in the area of research synthesis.

ARTICLE VIII

1. No substantial part of the activities of the Society shall be devoted to attempting to influence legislation by propaganda or otherwise, or by participating or intervening, directly or indirectly, in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.

2. No part of the new income of the Society shall inure to the benefit of any private person or individual, and no member, officer, or employee shall receive, or be lawfully entitled to receive, any pecuniary profit of any kind therefrom, except reasonable compensation for services in effecting one or more of the Society's purposes.

3. In the event that the Society is dissolved or annulled, the assets of the Society or the proceeds thereof, after payment of the debts due from the Society, shall not go to the members, officers, or employees, nor be divided among them, but shall be distributed according to the Articles of Incorporation.

ARTICLE IX

1. These By-Laws may be amended either (a) by a vote of two-thirds of the members present at any Annual Meeting provided that the notice of such Annual Meetings shall have set forth the substance of the proposed change, or (b) by a two-thirds vote of all members responding to a mailed ballot, provided that:

2. The proposed amendment shall have been previously approved by at least three of the five members of the Board of Trustees.

ARTICLE X

1. The Society, to the fullest extent permissible under any applicable law, shall indemnify and hold harmless trustees, officers and employees acting in an official capacity in behalf of the Society against personal liability, and may advance, pay for or reimburse the reasonable expenses incurred in the defense of any proceeding to which such individuals may be named. This right of indemnification shall not be deemed exclusive of any other right to which said persons otherwise may be entitled. This indemnification shall extend to such persons whether or not they continue to hold a position with the Society at the time such expenses and costs may be incurred, as long as the cause concerns their actions in an official capacity in behalf of the Society.

ARTICLE XI

1. No trustee or committee member may be permitted to participate in the discussion of or vote on any matter in which the trustee or committee member has a direct or indirect interest. A trustee or committee member has an interest in a matter if:

a. The matter involves the interests of another entity in which the trustee or committee member, or a member of his family has a material interest or in which the trustee or committee member, or a member of his family, is a principal, governing body member, or managing employee;

b. the matter involves services provided in or by an institution, organization, agency, or facility in which the trustee or committee member, or a member of his family, is a principal, governing body member, staff officer, or managing employee;

c. the matter involves services provided to a person who is a member of the trustee’s or committee member's family;

d. the matter involves services provided by or in conjunction with the trustee or committee member, or a member of his family;

e. the matter involves the interests of a person or entity who is in direct economic competition with the trustee or committee member; or

f. the matter involves the interests of any person or entity with whom the trustee or committee member is so closely affiliated that he cannot reasonably be expected to exercise independent judgment.

The term “family” is defined to include a spouse (other than one from whom the trustee or committee member is legally divorced or separated by judicial decree), a child (including legally adopted children), grandchildren, siblings, parents, and grandparents. The term "principal" is defined as a sole owner, a partner, a five percent or more shareholder, or any other owner of five percent or more of the equity in the entity, institution, organization, agency, or facility.

Whenever a trustee or committee member has cause to believe that a matter to be voted upon would involve such person in a conflict or possible conflict of interest, such person shall either: (a) announce the conflict of interest and abstain from both participation in the discussion of and voting on such matter; or (b) disclose the nature and source of the possible conflict to the other trustees or members present for their determination as to whether an actual conflict exists. The question of whether an actual conflict exists shall be decided by a majority vote of the trustees or committee members present, excluding said trustee or committee member announcing the conflict or possible conflict of interest, and excluding any other trustees or committee members present who have already been disqualified from discussing or voting on the issue because of their own conflicts of interest. Any trustee or committee member so determined to have an actual conflict of interest shall abstain from both participation in the discussion of and voting on such matter.