Steering committee leadership and roles are governed by the College and University Archives Section’s Standing Rules. These deeper descriptions of the roles are separate from the standing rules, so that future steering committees will have the flexibility to adapt to current section needs. This list is intended to help the committee maintain consistency, increase transparency, and provide information to potential new committee members. It is up to date as of 2026-06.
Chair: leads monthly steering committee meetings and annual business meeting, writes annual report
Vice Chair: Campus Case Study point person; login holder
Immediate Past Chair: Secretary of Governance (SoG), an advisory role responsible for maintaining and analyzing the governing structure of the committee. Manages governance structure rather than governance decisions and does not exercise decision-making authority. While serving as Secretary of Governance, the member waives their steering committee vote. Responsibilities include:
- Standing Rules and Governance Structure: Maintaining the authoritative record of standing rules and governance documentation; identifying inconsistencies, obsolete provisions, or vestigial structures; and recommending updates for committee consideration.
- Roles and Succession: Maintaining documentation of standing roles and their defined domains; tracking succession expectations and continuity risks; and identifying unfilled roles or unperformed duties.
- Labor and Initiative Tracking: Documenting standing responsibilities and temporary duty augmentations; tracking initiatives and associated labor; and identifying workload accumulation, dependency risks, and structural strain.
- Meetings and Records: Recording meeting minutes and producing a concise synthesized briefing for the steering committee, clarifying decisions, terminology, and unresolved structural matters. A substitute secretary will be chosen when the SoG is out.
- Annual Operations Survey and Report: Administering an annual self-report survey of steering committee roles and duties; analyzing results using percentage-based, year-over-year comparisons; and producing an annual governance and operations report for the full steering committee. When relevant and approved by the Chair, the role may also oversee basic activity data such as attendance counts or participant surveys.
- SoG does NOT: assign roles or duties, manage programs or initiatives, absorb operational responsibilities [no taking on additional roles], exercise decision-making authority.
Steering Committee Members (6 people): Official roles listed below are to be distributed between steering members (12 roles spread among 6 people (or 7, if we include the Immediate Past Chair, who cannot vote)). All roles shall be an officer, appointed by the Chair with the advice of the Steering Committee, for a term of one year, renewable with approval of the Steering Committee.
- Regular Programming Coordinator: with consultation of the committee, sets the frequency for the Section’s regular programming, such as coffee chats, spotlight or discussion series, etc. Coordinator can recruit assistance from officers in brainstorming topics and speakers, coordinating individual sessions, etc.
- Communications editor: consistent with the guidelines for SAA Sections, to promote communication of Section activity within the Section and to the Society at large, there shall be a College and University Archives blog. The blog is the responsibility of the communications editor, who should not serve concurrently as chair of the Section. The editor is responsible for coordinating, editing, and posting blog content, to be solicited from Steering Committee and Section membership. The editor is also responsible for coordinating any social media posting, checking for social media responses, and checking the section’s email. Note that all Steering Committee members are responsible for contributing to regular blog content.
- Web editor/microsite administrator: maintains the Section’s microsite, making updates and edits as needed; should not serve concurrently as chair of the Section.
- Nominating committee members: three, see Committees section of Standing Rules. Should be chaired by the Chair.
- Campus case study readers: two regular and one spare in case someone is unavailable or needs to recuse. Cannot be the Vice Chair (since they are the Campus Case Study Point Person).
- Research matching point person(s): ensure the research matching webpage is up to date, review the spreadsheet, solicit submissions to the spreadsheet twice per year or more, and twice per year or more schedule a Research Matching virtual event, so people can make research pitches to solicit partners and/or feedback.
- TAPAS point person(s): ensure that the TAPAS group meets, the effort continues to move forward, and it continues to align with Section goals and membership needs.
- Guidelines point person(s): as needed [guidelines only need to be reviewed every three years], coordinate with the Standards Committee to review Guidelines fo College and University Archives per existing procedures.
