A staff member can become an at-large representative in several ways, but the purpose of the position is to help represent staff in unrepresented districts. The district number will always begin with "999".
When people are interested in being an at-large rep, the Executive Committee may ask each candidate to submit information about why they are interested. The Executive Committee will then review the submissions and choose the new at-large reps, based on space available within the organization. Preference is given to previous Staff Council Representatives who have shown they are active participants.
Expectations and Duties
As an at-large rep the expectations are very similar to those of a “regular” representative. At-large representatives still attend meetings, serve on committees, and communicate with UTSC constituents. The district number will always begin with "999".
Three are three significant differences between regular reps and at-large reps:
- At-large terms are only one year in length and will always end in May. An at-large rep may choose to run in the next election, depending on how long the person has been in UTSC and whether there is a vacancy in the district. (The term limit is 4 consecutive years in any position)
- Instead of having a specific district to represent, at-large reps help represent “unrepresented” districts. Unrepresented districts are those who have NO representatives. Our goal is to keep the number of unrepresented districts very small, so there may only be 5-10 groups. What that means in practice is that at-large reps may need to send emails to the unrepresented districts to keep them informed of UTSC business and solicit their feedback about issues.
- Each year the at-large reps discuss how they want to do communication. Some groups prefer to have one volunteer send all the emails to all the unrepresented districts, while other groups prefer to take a district or two as their own.
- At-large reps may start receiving a number of emails asking to approve email messages. (This may change as the university changes how it does group emails)
- Our rule of thumb is: If you didn’t create the email, don’t approve the email. Just delete the approval message.
Access to technology
Frequently at-large representatives get involved at a time outside the regular election cycle. This means there may be a delay in when you get appointed as an at-large rep and when you get access granted to Regroup, UT Box, the wiki, or other platforms. If it has been more than a couple of weeks since you were appointed and you don't have the permissions you need or you are not listed on the List of Current Representatives page, please contact the Parliamentarian to get this corrected.
