BUSAC stands for Brandeis University Staff Advisory Committee. It consists of 17 elected and occasionally appointed staff members from 11 districts who work together with Brandeis leadership to address staff ideas, concerns and suggestions.
Voting for members of BUSAC is divided into three steps:
The eligible staff population is divided into districts:
All districts have at least one seat on the committee and there is one elected at-large seat. Any district with more than 100 eligible staff has two seats - these are currently districts A, C, F, J and K. The person (or persons in the case of larger districts) with the most votes from within their district will win the district seat. All other nominees will be added to the at-large pool. The person in this group with the highest TOTAL votes (across all districts) will win the at-large seat.
Each person who is eligible to vote belongs to a district, based on their primary department/office affiliation. You may nominate:
Any one (1) person from your district, including yourself
AND/OR
Any one (1) person from another district
This allows each person to nominate up to two (2) people. You do not have to nominate in both categories.
After nominations close, every person who is nominated, regardless of who nominated them (self, own district, other district) will receive an email asking them if they would like to accept the nomination. Everyone one who accepts the nomination will:
Yes – if there is more than one nominee in a district, the district seat will go to the person with the most votes from people WITHIN that district. All other nominees will be added to the at-large pool and their own district votes will be ADDED to any votes that they received from other districts as part of the at-large voting
Yes, the at-large election process will count all votes that a person received from both within and outside of their district. Thus, your vote for someone in your district will still be counted as a part of the at-large tally if they did not win your district seat.
No. Remember that you can only nominate people from outside of your district for the at large seat. However, if someone in another district nominates someone from your district, that person will appear in YOUR district election AND in THEIR at-large election. This may mean that someone that you want as your at-large member instead has a district seat, if they win that election.
Absolutely. The districts are meant to help ensure that representation is diverse across department/office affiliations; not to be restrictive. You should feel comfortable approaching ANY member of the committee.
The election process is run by ITS and access to the data is limited. The committee will only see the aggregate data (how many votes each person received in each category and how many people from each district voted) and will not see who voted or for whom. However, the election is not anonymous – your name is logged with your vote to ensure that each person votes only once.
No. Someone who wins their district seat is not considered for the at-large seat.
Please email busac@brandeis.edu and someone will get back to you to figure out a resolution.
Yes, each person can nominate one person from their district and one person outside of their district. When voting, the same applies. Because of this, each person gets two votes for each process, but they can never be for the same person.
Yes – all you need is the link from the email and a web browser.