Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors

The Debate Continues – How Long Should the CORD Board Officers serve?

Have you been thinking of getting involved in the CORD leadership but aren't really sure of the amount of time it would take or how long the commitment would be for? Does it surprise you that the term durations for the officers and board members are 2 years? Does that time commitment sound appropriate since there is a lot to do and it takes time to do it, or do you think the time obligation is too long and diminishes your interest in even starting to get more involved?

We on the Board feel the same way, actually, with some of us favoring the existing 2-year terms, and others desirous of a shorter term for the officers. In fact, several times over the past few years, discussion about shortening the length of term for the CORD officers has been raised by an officer to the bylaws committee for evaluation and possible bylaws revision. The bylaws committee did not agree with the revision and it has never been presented to the membership for vote. However, as the debate comes up again this year, we thought that a point-counterpoint article might be helpful to frame the discussion and raise awareness of the difficult issues to the membership, so that the membership could help advise the Board and bylaws committee. To give some historical perspective to the discussion, all of the Past Presidents of CORD were surveyed. They were asked to comment on the historical backdrop that was the basis for the length of terms set initially when the organization's bylaws were formed, and their opinions on those policies in the context of the current environment. Interestingly, their views and explanations are as diverse as the current Board and the membership is on this topic.

As background for the debate, the CORD Board of Directors originally consisted of three at-large members serving staggered three-year terms of office, and four officers serving two-year terms--the Secretary/Treasurer, President-Elect, President and Immediate Past President. Of course we don't elect President and Immediate Past President, they automatically follow the election of President-Elect. Therefore, Election to President-Elect is actually a six-year time commitment. Given the typical manner of things, one usually begins their service on their Board by being elected to a member-at-large position (3 years), then to Sec/Treas (2 years), and then the President-Elect (2 years). Therefore, the whole process was actually an eleven-year commitment. Two years ago, the Bylaws committee carefully evaluated the issue of term duration for the Board positions and officers, and ultimately recommended a change to decrease the Board of Directors' member-at-large term from the original three-year term to a two-year term, a fourth member-at-large position be added to the Board, and the original two-year length of term for the Board officers remained the same. These recommendations were approved by the membership in 2004. In 2005 the membership approved the Bylaws committee's modification in the criteria for nomination for the office of President-Elect to now require that s/he be a current or former Program Director.

For comparison, current emergency medicine organizations have varying lengths of terms for their officers: ACEP and SAEM officers serve one-year terms at each position while AAEM officers, like CORD, have two-year terms. ACEP, SAEM, and AAEM all have full-time Executive Director staff members, which CORD does not. As you may know, CORD contracts with SAEM for the extremely able services of the SAEM staff on a part-time basis.

Historically, the past Presidents of CORD report that the charter bylaws set the officers' length of term for two years because at the time it seemed like a reasonable amount of time to commit to the leadership of CORD. It was thought that rapid turn over of leadership would be too disruptive, and the 6-8 year commitment for officers would allow the leadership to accomplish more over time. Also, at the time, the organization was much smaller and it was felt there was a relatively small applicant pool from which the leadership would draw. Thus the two-year terms would allow for the development of experience and a corporate memory.

The Bylaws committee has chosen not to recommend change in the term duration for officers for several reasons:

• CORD is a relatively small organization, thus the pool of potential leaders is relatively small. Therefore we want to maximize the output of the individuals who are driven to serve.
  
• There has not been a shortage of interested parties to run for offices, so the market hasn't borne a problem.
  
• Without a staff executive director, there is theoretically not as detailed a corporate memory of events, thus relying heavily on the officers themselves to have personal knowledge of the history of the organization. Longer terms make this easier.
  
• Our organization is ever-growing, with increasingly productive committees and task forces. With as much productivity as we are seeing, it may take more than one year for a President's vision for the organization to be implemented. Additionally, because of the cyclic nature of the work of being a program director, there are large blocks of time (Dec – mid-February) when most PDs are not able do much for CORD beyond reading email. With the terms the way they currently are, there is built-in time for decompression, and there isn't such a rush to get things done by the deadline of "end of term."

Rationale for re-opening the discussion by the Bylaws committee include:

• The activities of CORD as an organization have expanded exponentially since its inception. CORD now holds a three-day, four-track educational meeting, has three other organizational meetings, organizes the CPC competition and provides on-line testing monthly for 75% of the residency programs. The members of CORD continue to develop useful tools including the SLOR, the SDOT, Sharepoint, and the model curriculum. Each of these projects and many others came from the enthusiasm and vast time commitment donated by dedicated individuals. Coordination of the many activities falls to the Board members and requires much more time than when the organization was initially founded. This is the most persuasive argument for decreasing the length of term for the officers and mentioned by a few Past Presidents.
  
• Another more practical reason to decrease the length of term for officers is the shorter longevity of a program director – 5 years on average. More recently there have been several officers who were no longer program directors at the end of their service to CORD. (It is now generally 8 years of service if one takes the traditional route from Secretary/Treasurer through Past President, not including 2-4 years on the Board as a member–at-large.)
  
• With a larger membership, the longer terms of office serve to limit the opportunities to involve more people in these leadership positions. The current extended length of commitment may limit some of the membership from stepping forward to accept these leadership positions.
  
• The long time-commitment on the Board after the term of Presidency is concluded may result in the true leadership of our specialty not being eligible or physically able to take on leadership roles in other organizations. Shortening the term duration would alleviate that barrier.

So on which side of the debate do you fall?

Shortening the two-year officer terms to one year each is the right thing to do for CORD to avoid limiting access of talented individuals who could lead the organization and limits on these leaders' abilities to take leadership positions in other organizations. OR The current two-year term durations are fine – the productivity of our organization means there are plenty of tasks for the officers to do, and the longer term means there is a bit more time to breathe while you are doing it.

Pam Dyne, MD
Olive View-UCLA Medical Center
CORD President
Mary Jo Wagner, MD
Synergy Medical Education Alliance
CORD Secretary/Treasurer

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