President

The chapter president must maintain a delicate balance between leading and encouraging other officers, members, and interested students to take on leadership responsibilities. The president’s responsibilities extend beyond the students within the chapter.

The role of the chapter president must:

• Know how to handle many types of situations

• Be mature

• Be organized with good time management skills

• Have sound judgment

• Have energy

• Be able to work with many different kinds of people and personalities

• Have a good relationship with the chapter, faculty, and student body

Vice President

The vice president’s primary (and very necessary) role is to serve as the official replacement for the president should the president fail to function or be unable to fulfill his or her responsibilities.

The vice president, more than any other officer, has the opportunity to be creative in the position beyond the primary job description. The vice president is the president’s closest student adviser and assistant. The vice president and president must work very closely together to create a productive Honor Society.

In many chapters, the president serves as the point-person—the person out in front of everyone. The vice president serves as the behind-the-scene person who plans, organizes, schedules, and oversees to make sure the chapter work is done.

To be successful, the vice president needs to

• Know how to handle many types of situations

• Be mature

• Be organized with good time management skills

• Have sound judgment

• Have energy

• Be able to work with many different kinds of people and personalities

• Have a good relationship with the president, chapter members, committees, and the student body

Secretary

The secretary’s primary responsibility is to keep the official records of chapter business and serve as the official correspondent for the chapter. The historical memory of the Honor Society on your campus depends on the quality of the secretary’s performance. The job requires accuracy, neatness, and completeness.

The secretary is expected to:

• Be the keeper of the records, designer of the agenda

• Be organized

• Know nearly everything about every meeting

• Be alert to the calendar and the progress of committees

• Be knowledgeable about meeting procedures

• Spend time planning and organizing the chapter’s work.

Depending upon your chapter and school size, the secretary position may actually be divided into two separate positions – recording and corresponding secretaries. Middle level chapters, for example, often separate the secretarial duties to distribute the workload and involve more students. The recording secretary deals with the agenda and minutes of meetings. The corresponding secretary maintains files, communications, and distribution of materials.

Parliamentarian

The role of the parliamentarian is to ensure that meetings are orderly and civil, and to help the chapter operate according to its constitution and bylaws.

The main function of the parliamentarian is to advise the president or chairperson on procedure during meetings. The parliamentarian does not rule members out of order. Neither should he or she call for votes—that is the job of the president. If a parliamentarian notices a violation in procedure, he or she should quietly tell the president, and then the president may rule from the chair.

The parliamentarian is expected to:

• Act as the keeper of the constitution and bylaws and be familiar with their contents

• Be knowledgeable about meeting procedures

• Offer procedural opinions when asked to do so by the president or chairperson

• Know nearly everything about every meeting

• Chair the constitution/bylaws revision committee, if the need arises.

Historian

The chapter historian’s primary responsibility is to collect and preserve information that provides a clear and concise record of all chapter activities for the year. The historian is also known as the marketing/PR liaison. It is the responsibility of this position to help the executive board and all committees advertise for any event.