This document contains the Constitution of the University of Waterloo’s Software Engineering Society. The membership is to be solely comprised of Undergraduate Software Engineering students at the University of Waterloo. This document shall form binding terms of reference and shall supersede all previous operating policies and/or any previous constitutions.
This Constitution has been very widely based off the Constitution for a fellow engineering society, the Civil, Environmental, and Geological Engineering Society. This constitution will be ratified only in the case in which a referendum to create the Software Engineering Society passes with at least 51% of the vote.
The following document is the constitution of the Software Engineering Society of the University of Waterloo. This document forms the binding terms of reference for all the Society’s operations, activities, and policies.
- The organization shall be known as the Software Engineering Society, SE Soc, or the Society.
- Since the engineering students at the University of Waterloo alternate
between work terms and academic terms every four months, there shall exist
an A-Society and B-Society to ensure that the society functions year-round;
Therefore, SE Soc is run alternately by two teams of students on
A-Society and B-Society. Members from the opposite Society may still
attend events from the other society.
- First year Software class will have one term in which they elect class representatives to the society, but they cannot run for executive positions in that term; they can run for executive positions starting the winter of their first year once they are on-stream with their society.
- A-Society Academic Terms shall occur during the fall term during even numbered years, the winter term during even numbered years, or the spring term during odd numbered years.
- B-Society Academic Terms shall occur during the fall term during odd numbered years, the winter term during odd numbered years, or the spring term during even numbered years.
SE Soc has a focus on improving the inter- and intra-cohort relationships, so every SE student can get the most out of their university experience by having many like-minded individuals to work, learn, and bond with.
The society will serve as the official undergraduate organization of the program, and will represent the interests of its members in interactions with the program administration, as well as various student organizations of other programs, faculties and Universities.
SE Soc will formalize the events and functions that should be run every term. Furthermore, having elected officials allows members to hold people accountable for those events and functions.
Membership in the Society will be restricted to those full time undergraduate students in the Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo. Members of the on-term society shall be entitled to voting rights in elections. All members shall have voting rights at All Class General Meetings (ACGM), and all on-term members shall be eligible to run for office (See Article 6 ‘Elections’ and Article 5 ‘Meetings’).
There shall be two (2) types of Members:
- A-Society
- B-Society
Executives will have an honorary membership in the alternate society from which they originated. Honorary membership allows the attending of SE Soc events and Council meetings, but not the rights for voting in Executive or class elections of the alternate society.
The executive council will be composed of elected officials with full (not honorary) membership to the respective stream for which they are running for elected office. The different positions that shall make up the executive council are as follows.
- President
- VP-Events
- VP-Communications
- VP-Finances
The President shall
- Organize all meetings
- Set the agenda for all meetings
- Represent the Society with utmost respect for others
- Stay connected with the exec team from the opposite stream in order to stay up to date
- Liaison with facilities and society
- Hold people accountable for their roles
- Help all VPs with their roles
The Vice-President Events shall
- Be the events point of contact
- Find/recruit directors of events as needed
- Delegate event work
The Vice-President Finance shall
- Be in charge of writing the budget for the term
- Help people with their reimbursement requests
- Be in charge of SoftWear, the SE swag store/orders
The Vice-President Communications shall
- Handle promotion of events, email blasts, Facebook events, etc.
- Be in charge of recruiting photographers for events
- Be in charge of soliciting feedback from members of the Society, and using that to inform actions and events run by the council
The General council consists of the executive council listed above as well as two social reps, three in the case of a 1A or 1B class. The social reps will be elected as outlined in 6.2; their terms will last one academic term, unless removed for any reason as listed under 7.0.
Any on-term council or ACGM can pass a policy with a simple majority (>50%) vote. Policies are directives that are subordinate or less powerful to the constitution, but must still be adhered to by the society as a whole. Every policy must have an expiry date or sunset clause not longer than 2 years from the date of passing; at that time, a council or ACGM can review, renew, or delete the expiring/expired policy with another simple majority vote.
All passed policies should be made available within a reasonable time frame of passing on the SE Soc GitHub repository or on the SE Soc website.
Any on-term council or ACGM can pass a procedure with a simple majority (>50%) vote. Procedures are guidelines that come subordinate to policies and the constitution, and the Society is advised to follow procedures unless a reasonable justification is made otherwise.
All procedures should also be made available within a reasonable time frame of passing, on the SE Soc GitHub repository or on the SE Soc website.
General Council Meetings will be held every three weeks, starting with the week immediately after class elections are held in seminar classes. The final meeting will be held during the second-last week of classes. Any meetings held during finals or between terms would be optional and therefore there would be no penalty for missing them.
Every General Council Meeting will have an agenda released before the start which outlines the topics to be discussed in that meeting. A meeting may only be called to order when a quorum of 50% of General Council members are present, no motions may be voted on if quorum is not met, but points of information can still be presented. Every meeting, except the first of the term, starts with the approval of the minutes from the last meeting. Execs are expected to give an update on what they’ve done since the last meeting. Following the exec updates, any EngSoc, MathSoc, WEEF or MEF reps that want to share things with SE will have the floor. Following all updates the first item of the agenda will be started.
The last meeting of the term is to be held in a licensed establishment or a private residence, and consumption of alcohol is permitted for all members of the society who are of legal drinking age.
There will be a speaker whose job it is to keep the General Council Meetings going and to bring up new agenda items as the meeting goes on. It will also be their job to accept agenda items that are emailed to them.
The Secretary’s job will be to take the meeting notes for every General Council Meeting, as well as to ensure the meeting notes are available to the entire council.
Executive Council meetings are held between each term and involve the executives from both streams. In-person attendance is not mandatory due to logistical difficulties, but it is encouraged. It is up to the incoming society executives to call the meeting, and to plan a time and place. The outgoing executives are expected to create an agenda for the meeting, deciding what should be mentioned and discussed from their outgoing term.
Executive elections will be held every second academic term for each society. The position will be held for 4 consecutive terms starting the first day of the co-op term immediately following an election. This will give each elected Executive 2 academic terms on the Executive Council.
In order to run for any elected position, the student must currently be enrolled in the Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo. In order to run for the position of President, said student must have been in the SE program for strictly greater than 1 calendar year. The student must intend to be an on-term member of the Society for which they are running for the next 2 academic terms.
All candidates for executive positions will have a spending limit of $25 for their campaigns. All money for campaigns will not be reimbursed by the society. There shall be a period of at least 5 days for campaigning. The candidates may not address classes about the election outside of times arranged by the CRO.
The nomination period will be run by the CRO, for a minimum of 5 days. To run for a VP position, a student must receive at least 15 nominations, and to run for president, a student must receive at least 25 nominations. A student may not be nominated for more than one Executive position in a given election.
Voting shall be done in a secure method approved by the General Council over a period of at least 2 days. In the event there is only one candidate running for a position, voters shall vote either "yes" or "no" on the ballot to approve or disapprove of the candidate. The candidate must attain a majority of votes to be elected.
When there is more than one candidate for a position, they will be elected via a single transferable vote system. Voters shall rank candidates on their ballot in order of preference. Voters may rank as many or as few candidates as they prefer. There shall also be a "No Candidate" option on each ballot. The winner of each election shall be determined as follows:
- A Candidate’s vote total shall initially be the total of their first place votes
- If a Candidate’s vote total is a majority of the ballots, they shall be declared elected
- If no Candidate has a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes shall be eliminated, and the next-place votes from their ballots shall be transferred to the other Candidate’s vote totals
- Ballots from an eliminated Candidate that contain no further votes shall be transferred to the “No Candidate” option
- If a Candidate now has a majority of the total votes, they are declared elected. Otherwise, the procedure outlined above shall be repeated until a Candidate’s total is greater than half the total number of votes
- If no Candidate wins a clear majority of votes, nominations for the position shall re-open as soon as possible, and the election shall be re-run
In the case an executive is no longer able to hold their executive position, a special election will be held. The other case in which a special election is permitted is if the winter election period was missed and no executives have been elected. The special election will be held during the current academic term if there is more than 1 month remaining; otherwise, it will be run at the beginning of the following academic term. It shall be run in the same form as 6.1.2
SE Society Representative elections will be held in the class seminar during the first week of classes. A current member of the Executive Council may not run for SE Society Rep. Each class will have a maximum of two class representatives. For 1A and 1B classes, there is an exception: they will be allowed 3 Social reps. Each member of the class will receive the number of votes as positions open (2 for upper year classes, 3 for first year classes). The candidates with the most votes will be elected.
There shall be a Chief Returning Officer (CRO) elected from the on-term members the academic term before an Executive Election. The CRO will be responsible for conducting all aspects of the Executive Election. The CRO may appoint up to one Deputy Returning Officer (DRO) from the on-term members at any time, who will assist with the coordination of the election.
The CRO and DRO must not be candidates for any executive position. The term of office for a CRO extends to the final day of the Academic term of the election.
An elected official who leaves the Software Engineering program will be removed from their role. Leaving the program includes, but is not limited to: switching to another program, graduating, or taking an indefinite leave of absence from the University.
An automatic motion for impeachment will be included for any elected official for doing any of the following:
- Missing 3 General Council meetings that required the representative’s attendance within a single academic term
- Missing 2 consecutive meetings without explanation and advanced warning
Any elected official may bring up a motion to impeach another elected official. The motion should describe what the person has done that infringes on the rules outlined in this constitution or otherwise shitty things.
There will be a group of initial temporary execs made up of the students who helped found the society in order to transition the society into its first elections, and to be a point of contact from the end of referendum until the election of executives as outlined in section 6.1.
The temporary execs will be as follows:
A-Soc:
- President: Spencer Dobrik (2020)
- VP-Events: Katherine Lu (2020)
- VP-Communication: Yingning Gui (2022)
- VP-Finance: Ayush Kapur (2022)
B-Soc:
- President: Bilal Akhtar (2019)
- VP-Events: Roxane Fruytier (2021)
- VP-Communication: Jenny Wills (2021)
There will be no temporary VP-Finance, and that role will fall under the President (since many of its roles should not be active yet).
The constitution may be amended by a motion at a general meeting , and may be changed via a two thirds majority. That amendment will be enacted starting the meeting it is approved, but must be ratified by the off-stream General Council the following term to be fully introduced into the constitution. If the amendment is not ratified by both councils within 2 terms, the constitution will be reverted to its prior form.