When Motions Still Aren’t Required (and When They Are)
In my previous article, I pointed out that motions allow for business to be brought before a society at one of its meetings, but not everything requires a motion. Items such as the approval of minutes and the adjournment of the meeting don’t require motions. After all, for meetings of the USF Faculty Senate, these items are already on the meeting agenda, and while the presentation of the minutes allows for corrections and additions, these two agenda items are rarely controversial and require no elaborate discussion. So, the meeting runs more smoothly when these items are simply handled by the President without additional formality.
Because the meeting agendas of the Family Senate are created through the work of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, the agendas often include action items, many of which are generated due to the work of the Faculty Senate Councils. The Councils frequently make recommendations to the FSEC and the Faculty Senate for discussion and a vote, and so these items also do not require motions to address them. They are simply handled as they come up on the agenda, are discussed, and in the case of action items, are voted upon. It is not even correct to say that they “come with a motion”; they simply require no motion in order to be dealt with.
So, what does require a motion? Not everything worth voting on (after an appropriate discussion) is going to already appear on the agenda. In some cases, a presentation of information already part of the agenda may suggest to at least one of the Senate members that the Senate should take action of some sort. It is usually appropriate, then, for the Senator to make a motion that the Senate take that particular action. Because the Senate exists as a body advising the USF administration, the action usually consists of going on record that the faculty believe that the administration should act in a particular way.
These motions, like all typical motions, require a second. Why? It is possible that only one Senator feels that the action is worth taking and requiring a second tells us that at least two Senators want to discuss this possibility of taking action. (Note that neither making the motion nor seconding the motion requires either individual to vote in favor of the motion after there has been discussion.) A motion that files to elicit a second automatically fails, and the meeting moves on.