Pre-Vet Society Officer Elections

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wuzzymolecules

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Hello!

I am the President of my undergrad university's Pre-Vet Society (but not for much longer because I am entering vet school in the fall). This is only the second year that our Pre-Vet Society has existed, because the former president before me started the club last year.

My question is- last year there were only 4 members in the club by the end of the year including me, so there was really no officer elections. The other three members got the other positions and I became president. We "voted" on a ballot, but it was just the previous officers and us four there to vote.

This year there are many more members, and it is voting time. We have the positions President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary, and I am adding a fifth position entitled "Volunteer Coordinator". There are 3 people who want to run for President, 3 people who want to run for VP, 2 for treasurer and none for secretary. There is about a group of 6 people who signed up for positions. Each of these people want a position in the club, but they said if they don't get for example get President, they would still like an other position like VP because they want to help with the club. How should I handle this situation? Obviously one person is not going to get a position but I just can't figure out how to do the ballots because I don't want let's say one of the president nominee's to get a vote in each of the positions because she told me to write her name down for everything and then her not get the position of President because the voters each voted differently for her.

Should I just tell them to pick one and hope for the best to simplify it and if there is still an open position, they can have that one? I'm just trying to figure this out because we didn't really have this problem last year, and I just want it to be fair for everyone. Any info on your clubs voting process would be helpful! Thanks!

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What does your org's constitution and bylaws say? If they qualify for a position they can run for it.
 
This reminds me a lot of my 4-H days where we had multiple people running for multiple positions. What we did was have voting for each position separately and announced the winner before moving on to the next position. Ex: cast vote for president, announce winner for president, move on to voting for vice president. This way people can run for as many or as few positions as they want and you don't have to worry about someone winning two positions.
 
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BSC's solution could work, especially with the pesky secretary vacancy. If you start at the top and work your way down, it would also encourage those who did not get the other positions to fill the position that needs filling (even though it's not as desirable). Are you guys worried about the "popularity contest" perspective at all?
 
This reminds me a lot of my 4-H days where we had multiple people running for multiple positions. What we did was have voting for each position separately and announced the winner before moving on to the next position. Ex: cast vote for president, announce winner for president, move on to voting for vice president. This way people can run for as many or as few positions as they want and you don't have to worry about someone winning two positions.

BSC's solution could work, especially with the pesky secretary vacancy. If you start at the top and work your way down, it would also encourage those who did not get the other positions to fill the position that needs filling (even though it's not as desirable). Are you guys worried about the "popularity contest" perspective at all?

I'm currently the president of my university's Pre-Vet Club (and have been an officer for 3 years now) and this is how we run our elections. I personally think it's pretty effective. Unfortunately this doesn't work well using a ballot system where people vote for every position at once and votes are tallied later.
 
BSC's solution could work, especially with the pesky secretary vacancy. If you start at the top and work your way down, it would also encourage those who did not get the other positions to fill the position that needs filling (even though it's not as desirable). Are you guys worried about the "popularity contest" perspective at all?
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I could rant on this forever. We have 2-3 people in our class who now hold the majority of positions that were available to a first year. One person has six. it became a running joke after a while, but it's still sucky for those that really want to get involved but don't throw the parties/have a dick :whistle:. Or just aren't considered 'cool.' It's high school, I'm telling ya.
 
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:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I could rant on this forever. We have 2-3 people in our class who now hold the majority of positions that were available to a first year. One person has six. it became a running joke after a while, but it's still sucky for those that really want to get involved but don't throw the parties/have a dick :whistle:. Or just aren't considered 'cool.' It's high school, I'm telling ya.

It wasn't really an issue for our pre-vet club since we had, like 8 members at any one time, with half being lower classmen. So everyone eventually holds an office of some sort. But I know our pre-health professions club has this issue majorly cause they have 50 or so kids. I didn't join on that merit alone. There was a lot of cliqueness that I avoided and got to watch from the sidelines. It amazed me how petty people got when they all had the same goal.

I would definitely be the person who was like, "You know, you're an officer for x, y, and z, why not give other people a chance at something?" But then again, I also don't blame people for wanting what they can get if it will help later on.
 
It wasn't really an issue for our pre-vet club since we had, like 8 members at any one time, with half being lower classmen. So everyone eventually holds an office of some sort. But I know our pre-health professions club has this issue majorly cause they have 50 or so kids. I didn't join on that merit alone. There was a lot of cliqueness that I avoided and got to watch from the sidelines. It amazed me how petty people got when they all had the same goal.

I would definitely be the person who was like, "You know, you're an officer for x, y, and z, why not give other people a chance at something?" But then again, I also don't blame people for wanting what they can get if it will help later on.
Yeah, I mean they won fair and square, it just sucks for everyone else. Obviously I'm bitter...I tried for I think 5 different positions this year, all of which I was super excited about! Maybe something will open up in the future.
 
I would definitely be the person who was like, "You know, you're an officer for x, y, and z, why not give other people a chance at something?" But then again, I also don't blame people for wanting what they can get if it will help later on.

Being on the board of a prevet club or any college club really isn't going to help anyone that much later on. So not worth fretting and fighting and dying over.


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Being on the board of a prevet club or any college club really isn't going to help anyone that much later on. So not worth fretting and fighting and dying over.

That escalated quickly.

giphy.gif
 
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We ended up doing speeches, casting votes, tallying, and then declaring winner for each position one at a time. It worked out really well, and everyone is satisfied.

This pre-vet society isn't large, and it has so far been a great way for all of our members to connect with one another. We don't have a pre-vet curriculum at our university, nor a pre-vet advisor, so this club is really what is helping the pre-vet kids learn about their path to vet school. I think everyone wanted a position because they had a lot of great ideas that they wanted to expand on from this year. They would like to make this club more well known and engaged in the school, because right now compared to the Pre-Professional Society/pre-med club which has like 75+ members, we haven't gotten much recognition. But I guess that's what we have to deal with when our school cancelled our pre-vet/animal science degree 3 years ago. :p oh well

Thanks for the ideas! They really helped, and I appreciated it!
 
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We ended up doing speeches, casting votes, tallying, and then declaring winner for each position one at a time. It worked out really well, and everyone is satisfied.

This pre-vet society isn't large, and it has so far been a great way for all of our members to connect with one another. We don't have a pre-vet curriculum at our university, nor a pre-vet advisor, so this club is really what is helping the pre-vet kids learn about their path to vet school. I think everyone wanted a position because they had a lot of great ideas that they wanted to expand on from this year. They would like to make this club more well known and engaged in the school, because right now compared to the Pre-Professional Society/pre-med club which has like 75+ members, we haven't gotten much recognition. But I guess that's what we have to deal with when our school cancelled our pre-vet/animal science degree 3 years ago. :p oh well

Thanks for the ideas! They really helped, and I appreciated it!
Glad it worked out! Complete sidebar, but it's interesting to me to see how other pre-vet organizations are set up. Ours has like 200 members and I keep forgetting that most are way smaller than that.
 
We ended up doing speeches, casting votes, tallying, and then declaring winner for each position one at a time. It worked out really well, and everyone is satisfied.

This pre-vet society isn't large, and it has so far been a great way for all of our members to connect with one another. We don't have a pre-vet curriculum at our university, nor a pre-vet advisor, so this club is really what is helping the pre-vet kids learn about their path to vet school. I think everyone wanted a position because they had a lot of great ideas that they wanted to expand on from this year. They would like to make this club more well known and engaged in the school, because right now compared to the Pre-Professional Society/pre-med club which has like 75+ members, we haven't gotten much recognition. But I guess that's what we have to deal with when our school cancelled our pre-vet/animal science degree 3 years ago. :p oh well

Thanks for the ideas! They really helped, and I appreciated it!

I'm disappointed that jello wrestling did not occur... :(
 
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Glad it worked out! Complete sidebar, but it's interesting to me to see how other pre-vet organizations are set up. Ours has like 200 members and I keep forgetting that most are way smaller than that.

We don't even have that many kids in our entire science department.....
 
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We ended up doing speeches, casting votes, tallying, and then declaring winner for each position one at a time. It worked out really well, and everyone is satisfied.

This pre-vet society isn't large, and it has so far been a great way for all of our members to connect with one another. We don't have a pre-vet curriculum at our university, nor a pre-vet advisor, so this club is really what is helping the pre-vet kids learn about their path to vet school. I think everyone wanted a position because they had a lot of great ideas that they wanted to expand on from this year. They would like to make this club more well known and engaged in the school, because right now compared to the Pre-Professional Society/pre-med club which has like 75+ members, we haven't gotten much recognition. But I guess that's what we have to deal with when our school cancelled our pre-vet/animal science degree 3 years ago. :p oh well

Thanks for the ideas! They really helped, and I appreciated it!
This sounds like what I would have suggested. Glad you found a good solution for everyone.
 
200?! Jeez.

My school doesn't have a pre vet society. We have a "pre health professionals society" which some of you may be familiar with as Alpha Epsilon Delta. But so many people called it the pre med society (because me have soooooo many pre meds and nothing else at my school) and I never knew I was eligible to join :laugh: I considered starting a pre vet society but there's 3 pre vets at my whole school, and two of us got accpeted this year so...
 
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We had something like 17 in the pre-vet club. And when I graduated, we had like 4-5 people apply to vet school and 3 got in. They even had a recurrent panel of accepted students/vet students from year to year.
 
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