MESFAC Bylaws

ME Student Fee Initiative Bylaws

Article I. Preamble

Section A. This organization exists so that it may “Improve the Quality of Education for Mechanical Engineering Students at Cal Poly”.

Section B. It is the intent of this organization to abide by pertinent State and University regulations.

Article II. Objectives

Section A. The objectives of this organization will be to gain information from the Mechanical Engineering Department and from its’ students to create a spending plan that uses 100% of the student fees for instructional related activities. To make aware to mechanical engineering students how their fees are being used.

Section B. The objectives of this organization will be to adhere to the “Cal Poly Plan and College Based Fee Initiative – Goals and purposes”. This document can be found on the Mechanical Engineering website. Click “Student Fee Initiative” link and then click the “Funding Proposal Form” link where it is at the bottom of the document.

Article III. Name and Affiliation

Section A. The name of this organization shall be “Mechanical Engineering Student Fee Allocation Committee”, hereinafter referred to as the “MESFAC”.

Section B. The MESFAC shall be an organization in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, subject to all the privileges and obligations provided for in the College of Engineering Oversight Committee Guidelines, as well as the privileges and requirements of the University and the State of California.

Article IV. Membership

Section A. Membership shall include students, faculty, and the Mechanical Engineering Department Chairman.

1. Student Membership

a. Shall be open to anyone who is a mechanical engineering student (undergraduate and graduate).

b. Shall total five students.

i. Three upper division students having completed 15 or more ME units.
ii. Two lower division students having completed 5-14 ME units.

c. Shall be elected by the mechanical engineering student body.
d. Shall not consist of students who are on academic probation.

2. Faculty Membership

a. Shall consist of at least one faculty member
b. Faculty members are to be determined by the Mechanical Engineering Department.
c. Shall not have voting privileges and are to serve as advisors to the MESFAC.

3. Mechanical Engineering Department Chairman

a. Shall not have voting privileges and is to serve as an advisor to the MESFAC.

4. There may be no membership discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, or sexual preference.

Section B. Voting Members

1. Only current student members will have the right to vote.

Section C. Nominations

1. Applications and information about the election of MESFAC members will be posted on the M.E website, in “my.calpoly.edu” under the ‘Mechanical Engineering’ folder under the ‘Announcements’ section, and emailed to all mechanical engineering students during the first three weeks of the spring quarter.

2. Applications can be submitted through the MESFAC Blackboard channel.  The current MESFAC is responsible for insuring all current Mechanical Engineering students are registered for the MESFAC Blackboard channel

3. Flyers will be posted in the Mechanical Engineering building hallways and faculty are encouraged to announce the availability of applications to their classes.

4. The completed application must be submitted online via the MESFAC Blackboard channel no later than 5pm on Friday at the end of the third week of the spring quarter.

5. Each candidate’s information will be available on the Internet for students to view.

6. An information session will be held Thursday during the fourth week of the spring quarter, from 11a.m. to 12p.m. for candidates to speak about their qualifications for MESFAC membership.

7. If there are fewer than four applicants, then the deadline for applications will be postponed by one week.

Section D. Elections

1. The election will take place during the entire fourth week of the spring quarter. Students can vote on the MESFAC Blackboard channel.

4. Only mechanical engineering students will be allowed to vote.

5. Ballots will be accepted all week in the ME Department office. The election will end at 5pm on Friday of the fourth week of the spring quarter.
6. The ballot will separate candidates into lower and upper division students.

7. The top two lower division and three upper division students who receive most of the votes will be elected to the MESFAC in the charter year.

8. Thereafter, voters will choose four new candidates each year.

9. The number of lower and upper division students to vote for on the ballot will depend on the current status of the two-year term member.

10. If there are fewer than two lower division candidates running for the MESFAC, then the open spots will be filled by upper division students.
11. One of the faculty members of the MESFAC will be responsible for setting up and running online voting through the Blackboard service. Online voting will be held during the entire fourth week of the fourth quarter.

12. The responsibility of tallying the results of the online voting will be shared by the faculty member responsible for setting up the online voting and by one of the staff in the Mechanical Engineering department office.

13. Ballots will be kept by the Mechanical Engineering Department for future reference in the event of a vacancy in membership of the MESFAC.

14. The MESFAC will submit to the ESC Chair current election formats when requested.

16. If the nomination process is postponed due to lack of applicants, then the elections will be postponed by the same duration of time. Hence the elections will always take place the Monday after the Friday application deadline.

17. If there are only four candidates then those candidates shall automatically become the new members of the MESFAC since there is no minimum vote necessary to elect a candidate.

Section E. Term of Office

1. The terms of membership for the MESFAC will be for one year and two weeks from the date of announcement of the newly elected members in the charter year.

2. Thereafter, each voting year three members will be on the MESFAC for a period of one year and two weeks. The two year term members shall remain on the MESFAC for a period of two years and two weeks: The first year as vice chair, and the second year as chair.

3. Old members will assist only in an advisory role to the new members of the MESFAC for the last two weeks of the old members’ term. This is to help transition the new members into the MESFAC.

4. Members of the MESFAC are expected to be present during their tenure.  A long term absence will be considered a vacancy.

Section F. Vacancy

1. A vacancy occurring in the membership of the MESFAC will be filled by the next most voted for upper or lower division student dependant upon if the vacancy is an upper or lower division spot.

2. The person will be contacted by the Mechanical Engineering Department and asked to fill the vacancy.

3. If refused, the Mechanical Engineering Department will continue calling the next-most voted for candidate until the vacancy is filled.

4. If the two year term member is unable to fulfill the second year, the position will be offered to one of the current one year members. If refused then the procedure to replace the vacancy will be the same as stated in Section F 1-3.

5. After a replacement is found, it will be the job of the MESFAC chair to update the replacement as to their duties as part of the MESFAC.

Article V. Officers and Their Duties

Section A. The officers of the MESFAC shall be Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Public Relations, and Surveyor.

1. The five student members will select these officers.

a. A student member may nominate the other student members for any available officer position, or self-nominate.

Section B. Duties

1. Chair

a. Shall preside at all regular and special meetings.
b. Shall conduct order of the members during meetings.
c. Shall call meetings.
d. Shall sign any document that has been approved by the MESFAC voting members.
 f. Shall delegate responsibilities to the other members of the MESFAC.
g. Shall be responsible for communicating with any new member of the MESFAC including student, faculty, or ME department chair.
h. Shall be responsible for attending and reporting back to the MESFAC on any information presented at the Student Fee Allocation Chairs Meetings.

2. Vice-Chair

a. Shall perform all duties of the Chair, in the absence of the Chair.
b. Shall be responsible for updating the MESFAC with current MESFAC budget. This can be achieved by working with the ME department’s financial analyst.
 c. Shall understudy the Chair to take over for the following year.

d. Shall update the website to show current status of proposals

3. Secretary

a. Shall take minutes during the meetings.
b. After meetings, shall email to all members of the MESFAC ‘Draft Minutes’ for preview.
c. Shall take approved minutes and upload them to the MESFAC website

4. Public Relations

a. Shall be responsible for advertising all MESFAC events.
b. Shall at the beginning of the Fall quarter request permission from faculty to speak in all introductory mechanical engineering classes (i.e. ME134, ME234) briefly to inform the incoming Freshman/Transfers of MESFAC.
c. Shall represent and talk about the MESFAC at Open House.

5. Surveyor

a. Shall be responsible for conducting survey(s) to the ME students to obtain student input.
b. Shall report progress and/or results of survey(s) to the MESFAC.
c. Shall work with the faculty member that has the authority to run electronic surveys.

Article VI. Meetings

Section A. Guidelines

1. The MESFAC will meet in accordance with the MESFAC calendar.

2. The Chair will be responsible for calling these meetings and presiding over them.

3. The Chair may call additional meetings in order to accomplish the objectives of the MESFAC most efficiently.

4. All meetings are open to the public.

5. Time, date and location of meetings will be given to the Mechanical Engineering Department office assistant for mass emailing to the Mechanical Engineering student body, faculty, and staff no later than three days prior to the meeting date.

6. At least one meeting throughout the academic year will be held for solicitation of student input.

7. A quorum will be needed on all voting matters.

8. A quorum shall consist of four student members.

9. Decisions made during meetings are binding as long as the decisions do not violate university policy or any laws.

10. Roberts Rules of Order shall be referred to for all parliamentary procedures not covered by these bylaws.

Article VII. Mechanism for Fiscal and Governance Accountability

Section A. Fall Quarter

1. The MESFAC will make available to all majors an accounting of the previous years spending plan, both state and academic fee budgets along with updated estimates, using appropriate metrics, for the impact on the instructional program.

Section B. Spring Quarter

1. The MESFAC will present to all students a report on:
a. Proposed spending plan for current fiscal year.
b. Actual spending for current fiscal.
c. Deviation from proposed spending plan.
d. Projected budget for the following year.
e. Projected spending plan for the next fiscal year.
f. Current year’s department budget expenditures.
g. IAC recommendations.
h. Future plans of department.

Article VIII. Budget

Section A. Estimation of revenues for the MESFAC Budget

1. Equation for estimation
a. [The number of projected students enrolling in the mechanical engineering department per quarter x the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI) student fee of $200 per student x 3 quarters] + [estimated summer enrollment x the HEPI student fee of $200 per student] = Budget Estimate.  For further explanation please see attached “College Based Fee Budgeting and Financial Process Overview.”

2. The Vice-Chair will maintain a spreadsheet of the MESFAC budget for reference to aid MESFAC in its spending decisions.

IX. Amendments

Section A. Amendments must be written out in full and first be presented to and approved by at least four of the voting members present at a regular meeting.

X. Conflict

Section A. These bylaws shall be in accordance with the “Guidelines for Election of CENG’s Departments’ Academic Fee Oversight Committee” and the policies of the University.

Section B. Any problem should be resolved at the departmental level. However, in the event that a problem cannot be resolved at that level, then the problem should be appealed to the Dean of the College of Engineering.

XI. Other

Section A. Each year, a copy of the “MESFAC bylaws”, “Guidelines for Election of CENG’s Departments’ Academic Fee Oversight Committee”, and “Cal Poly Plan and College Based Fee Initiative – Goals and Purposes” are to be given to the new members of the MESFAC.

Section B. Any other documents, such as surveys, survey results, memos, etc… are to be given up to the new members of the MESFAC at the discretion of the old members of the MESFAC.

XI. Forms

Section A. Funding Proposals

1. Acceptance
a. Proposals are accepted electronically only. Proposal forms will be available online under the ‘Student Fee Initiative Link’ on the ME homepage.
b. Completed proposals with appropriate signatures will be accepted by the MESFAC from Mechanical Engineering students, faculty, and staff.
c. Deadlines for proposal acceptance shall fall in accordance with the MESFAC Calendar.
d. The Vice Chair will be responsible for updating the funding proposals’ link with the appropriate status of the proposals. Status: = (‘Under Review’, ‘Tabled’, ‘Not Approved’, ‘Approved’, or ‘Rejected’).

2. Proposal Status Notification
a. The Vice Chair will be responsible for updating the proposals link with the appropriate status of the proposals within three days after proposals have been voted on so the proposal requester may check their proposal status online.
b. The Vice Chair will give proposals to the ME office financial analyst so that the financial analyst may update the MESFAC budget and notify the proposal requester of their proposal status.
c. Any proposal that has been approved and then handed over to the ME financial analyst could be overturned if the ME financial analyst deems the proposals violates some type of university policy. In this event the financial analyst will tell the MESFAC Chair and the Vice Chair that the status of the proposal needs to be changed to ‘Rejected’ and proceed to explain the reason/s for such an action.

All paperwork, receipts, expenses, and reimbursement forms must be submitted by the April 1st Budget deadline.