Turkish Students Club's Constitution

ARTICLE 1: Name

The name of this organization is the Turkish Students Club (TSC) at Lehigh University.

ARTICLE 2 : Purpose

The primary objective of the organization is to promote the support between Turkish students, scholars and staff at Lehigh University and their families while representing Turkey and its diverse culture.

ARTICLE 3: Objective

TSC organizes cultural, sport and recreational activities in line with its primary objective mentioned in the purpose. It participates to the similar activities organized by other organizations at Lehigh University. TSC helps new students and scholars to be acquainted with the local environment.

ARTICLE 4: Membership

TSC is open to everybody who has some interest in Turkey and its culture, and agrees with its constitution. Members are categorized in two groups: Active Members and Passive Members. Active members are the members who pay their membership dues as opposed to passive members. Active members do have the right to vote in elections and constitution changes as well as benefit from any activity discounts offered by the Executive Board. On the other hand, passive members are not allowed to benefit from aforementioned privileges. Although there is no limitation in becoming a member, the Executive Board should consist of Turkish students studying at Lehigh University. The Turkish Students Club at Lehigh University is a non-political, social and cultural organization that does not discriminate people based on race, faith, ethnic group and sex.

ARTICLE 5: Executive Board

Article 5.1: Structure and Duties

TSC Executive Board consists of: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary.

President:

  • Represent the organization
  • Coordinate the organization in accordance with the constitution, general board meeting decisions and activity group proposals
  • Assure the application of the decisions taken
  • Act as the chairman of Executive Board and General Board meetings

Vice-President:

  • Serve the role of the President in his/her absence
  • Support the President to accomplish the tasks
  • Observe the activity groups and support them whenever needed
  • Provide coordination between the activity groups and Executive Board
  • Responsible for introducing the constitution to the members in the first general meeting.

Treasurer:

  • Responsible for the follow-up of all incomes and expenditures of TSC
  • Collect the membership dues for each semester (fall & spring)
  • Prepare monthly financial report to the Executive Board, semi-annual budget report to the General Board to be approved.

Secretary:

  • Do the announcements about all meetings, activities and elections and follow up
  • Write and keep the minutes of the meetings
The Executive Board assigns one faculty advisor each year. The Faculty Advisor helps in the formal relations with the university, and attends to all General Board meetings and to the Executive Board meetings when invited.

Article 5.2: Election

Elections are held annually, before the end of April. Exact date and time of the elections should be announced by the current Executive Board at least two weeks before the election date. The candidates should be nominated at least one week before the election by 5pm EST (Eastern Time) via e-mail to the current secretary of the Executive Board. The candidates will then be announced to the public by the current Executive Board. Any active member including the ones who have already served as an officer for two or more academic years are eligible to be nominated for the election. However, the nominees who have already served 2+ academic years will be considered as “Secondary Candidates”. Secondary candidates can only participate in the elections either; i) in the absence of a primary candidate for an officer position, or ii) in the need of second tour of the elections, which occurs when the primary candidate fails to achieve the majority vote of the participating active members. An election can be held in the first meeting if and only if majority (50+%) of the active members are present in the meeting. Otherwise, the election will be held in a meeting one week later without any restriction on the number of participants. The officers are chosen by the majority (50+%) vote of the participating members to the election meeting. If none of the candidates for any officer position has enough votes to be elected in the first tour, then a second tour for those positions between the two candidates that have the most votes in the first tour will be held. In the second tour, the candidate that has the most of the votes will be elected as the officer. The elections are held by secret ballet, the counting of the votes is done openly. The term of each officer is one academic year, and the current Executive Board will pass their duties to the new Executive Board at the end of the Spring Semester in which the election took place. The same person can be elected as an officer at most for two academic years.

Article 5.3: Resignation & Removal

Any officer of the Executive Board can resign from his/her duty. Any officer of the Executive Board can be removed from his/her duty only by the votes of 2/3’s of the members. If more than one of the Executive Board positions becomes vacant due to some reasons, an election should be held within a month. If only President position becomes vacant, then the Vice-President will serve as the President for the rest of the term. If any other officer position than the President position becomes vacant, the Executive Board assigns a member to the position for the rest of the term.

ARTICLE 6: Meetings

There are three types of meetings at TSC. Executive Board Meeting: The Executive Board Meeting is held biweekly. All the Executive Board members and the persons invited by the Executive Board attend to these meetings. General Board Meeting: There are two General Board Meetings annually, one at the end of each semester. The Executive Board presents its Activity Report to all the members. The second General Board meeting, which is held in spring semester, is also the election meeting. The Executive Board can call for a General Board meeting in case of urgent situations. Regular Meetings: Periodic regular meetings are held to increase the level of communication and relations between the members.

ARTICLE 7: Activity Groups

These groups are established based on voluntary attendance. However, each member is encouraged to be a member of at least one activity group. These groups assure the active attendance to the activities in their scope, provide proposals and suggestions regarding their scope. They plan and do all the necessary preparations with the support of all members to accomplish the activities. They work in coordination with the Vice-President. They provide a monthly activity report to the Executive Board, and semi-annual activity report to the General Board.

ARTICLE 8: Finances

Dues will be determined by (the president with the approval of) a majority vote of the membership.

ARTICLE 9: Amendments to constitution

Any article of this constitution can be amended by a two-third affirmative vote of those members present at meeting. An amendment request can be given by the signature of one-fifth of the active members as a written proposal to the Executive Board. The Executive Board is responsible to call for a General Board Meeting to discuss and vote such a request not earlier than 7 days and no later than 15 days after the proposal is submitted.

ARTICLE 10 : Ratification

This Constitution and its ten articles are ratified by twenty nine members present at a meeting called for on October 19, 2001. The meeting is called by the signers of this Constitution who will also be presenting it to the TSA. The articles of this constitution are revised from its original version (2001) by the Executive Board of year 2006 due to the rights endowed by TSC members in General Board Meeting held on April 2006.