Secretary/Treasurer

The Secretary/Treasurer is responsible for the finances, meeting minutes, website, and general running of the FEd. The APS Unit Handbook is a good place to start to read about the procedures for units. As Treasurer, they approve all transactions from the FEd account and create the Budget for the year. As Secretary, they record the minutes from all of the Executive Committee Meetings, meet with the chair to plan those meetings, and serve on the Mini-Grant and Membership Committees. In addition, they serve as a contact for the unit, ensure that the unit is meeting the deadlines set in the Timeline, and post announcements in the Discussion Forum from the Executive Committee.  

Budget

The Secretary/Treasurer meets with the Chair during early January to create a proposed budget for the year. This Budget is discussed/approved at the Jan/Feb. Onboarding Meeting. A sample Budget is below. 

Account Balance and Revenues. What number should you base your Budget on? Typically, revenues include a $20k transfer from APS every year (if the balance of the FEd account from the previous year is less than $50k) plus some share in the APS income every year (usually $6k). Both of these happen in January. Thus, the budget should include the APS transfer ($20k), the APS income ($6k), and the balance transfer from the previous year. However, the previous year’s balance transfer sometimes does not happen until June, so do not panic! Just manually calculate the Account Balance. Below, you can see the numbers from the Budget Reports from the month indicated. If you use the January values (like we did!), you may be off by $60k! Numbers that should have been used are in bold.

Expenses. To create the Budget, you look at what you want to do for the year and create line items for each expense. At the end of the year, when you want to account for the actual expense, you will need to translate the line items in the Unit Detail Report to the items you have listed in your Budget. Here, in the Actuals, I list the line item in the Unit Detail Report in parentheses. 

Financial Reporting at Executive Committee Meetings

The Secretary/Treasurer reports on the finances for the unite at the Executive Committee Meetings. The FEd is given $20,000 per year to spend on programming. If the total account exceeds $50,000, then the unit doesn’t receive the $20,000 allotment. Fiscal year is January to January. Financial Reports are on the Engage website under the Communities Section. Go to the Libraries part of that website and then click on “Finance” in the folders section to see all of the monthly unit reports. Make sure you are logged in to the website to view the page. Usually reports come out 1.5 months after the last day of the month, so the January report should be available in mid-March. Often, the January, February, or even the March report will come out and will not have the correct “year end” numbers. Specifically, the dollar amount leftover in the account from the previous year will not forward in the report. For example, if there is $38k left in the account at the end of December, then the January report might only show $20k (the yearly transfer amount) rather than $58k (balance forward + yearly transfer amount). If the account at the end of December has $74k, then the January report will show $0 (no yearly transfer) rather than the $74k (balance forward). Eventually, the year end will close and the balance will forward. The Secretary/Treasurer should create budgets as if this number will forward.

Expense Reimbursement

To process a reimbursement, the person that would like to be reimbursed needs to send an email to accountspayable@aps.org with the Accounting Forms filled out and cc the Secretary/Treasurer. Then, the Secretary/Treasurer responds with a line that they approve the reimbursement. Reimbursements will come in from Mini-Grant Awardees, Committee members attending the March or April Meetings, invited speakers who can reimburse their registration to the March or April Meetings, or items from other initatives. The accounting form to reimburse travel is done using the Travel Reimbursement Form. To purchase something from a vendor or to reimburse a person who makes a vendor purchase, you will need to use the Payment Request Form. This form requires an invoice or a receipt. To pay a salary to an individual, APS would need a Payment Request Form and a W-9 and Direct Deposit Form from each person receiving a payment (these can be sent directly to accountspayable@aps.org if they prefer). 

Emailing the FEd list or Executive Committee

To email the entire FEd email list use the Discussion Forum. If you submit a post to, then an APS employee must approve it before it goes out to the membership (usually 2-3 days). If you use the #FeaturedNews hashtagthen the post will show up in the Featured News area as well.

To email the Executive Committee, use the fedexec@aps.org email list. You will need to update this email list before you use it–hopefully in January. To update the email list, send the information from the APS Executive Committee webpage after it has been updated from the election to apsunits@aps.org. 

Minutes for the Meetings

The Secretary/Treasurer is in charge of the Minutes. These minutes are currently on a crowdsourced Google Doc. They contain the minutes of the Executive Committee Meetings and the minutes of the meetings between the Chair and the Secretary/Treasurer. Secretary/Treasurer makes sure to take minutes during the meeting in addition to the crowd sourcing.

Keep the FEd Executive Committee Running 

There are a few things the Secretary/Treasurer does to keep the FEd Executive Committee running.

1. After the election, the Secretary/Treasurer sends an email to the outgoing committee thanking them for their service and sends an email to the incoming committee welcoming them.

2. The Secretary/Treasurer polls Executive Committee members about times for the three Executive Committee Meetings and sets the dates/times.

3. The Secretary/Treasurer checks in with the Chair before each Executive Committee meeting to plan the agenda.

4. After the onboarding meeting, the Secretary/Treasurer sends emails to the four Committees (Membership, Nominating, Honors/Awards/Fellowships, Program) telling them who is on the committee, information about the committee, and getting them started. Emails are below.

5. The Secretary/Treasurer checks in with the Honors/Awards/Fellowships committee in April, the Programming Committee at the end of July, and the Nominating Committee in the middle of August. Secretary/Treasurer is on Membership and Mini-Grants.

6. The Secretary/Treasurer helps with the election in mid-October. 

7. After the onboarding meeting, the Secretary/Treasurer sends emails to the people who will get a travel reimbursement that year and tells them how to reimburse travel. Email below.

Membership Email:

If you are receiving this email, then you are on the FEd Membership Committee. The chair of the committee is the FEd Chair and the vice chair of the committee is the FEd Chair Elect. The committee members are:

This committee meets at the behest of the Chair (Geraldine) on topics concerning the Membership. Each Chair is a little different on how they want to run this committee.

Info from Bylaws:

1. Membership Committee: The Membership Committee shall consist of the Chair, the Graduate Student Member-at-Large, and General or APS/AAPT Members-at-Large in the second or third year of their term. The Chair may change the composition of the Committee if desired. The Membership Committee is tasked with addressing special requests from the members and with creating and implementing initiatives to increase Forum membership.

Program Committee Email:

If you are receiving this email, then you are on the FEd Program Committee. The Committee is:

This committee will have a different timeline this year due to the combined April/March meeting. I have included the timeline for Summer 2023. Last time, the April Meeting dates will just move to coincide with the March Meeting dates.

The first order of business will be to secure the committee member from FOEP and to make select the sorting categories for the May 1 deadline. Clausell should convene the committee when ready by email or by zoom.

Important Deadlines:
May 1 -- sorting categories are due
June 15 – submit topics for 2 FEd Focus Sessions and 1 Symposium Session for the March Meeting
July 15 – receive nominations for the March Meeting sessions from APS
September 1 – send APS the list of invited speakers for the March Meeting
October 1 – Program Committee deadline for sorting categories for April Meeting
October 5 (or close)  – March Meeting contributed abstract deadline
October 31 – Programming Committee deadline for sessions and invited speakers for April Meeting
January 5 (or close)  – April Meeting contributed abstract deadline
March and April of the following year – Attend the meeting.

Charge from the Bylaws:

1. Program Committee: The Program Committee shall consist of the ChairElect, and up to nine members appointed by the Chair, in consultation with the Chair-Elect, no later than June 1 of each year. In addition, one member shall be appointed by the Executive Committee of the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public. The Chair-Elect shall serve as the Chair of the Program Committee. The Chair-Elect will remain Chair of the Program Committee until the April Meeting which he or she planned is complete. The Program Committee shall be responsible for the solicitation and selection of invited papers for Forum sponsored sessions at meetings of the Society and for the arrangement of the programs of such meetings. The term of office for members of the Program Committee shall be one year.

Article IX - Programs and Activities

1. The Program Committee shall work with the Society Director of Meetings, or his or her designee, in arranging Forum-sponsored sessions at meetings of the Society. This activity shall include the scheduling of invited and contributed papers at meetings of the Society and organizing of Forum-sponsored conferences. The programs of the Forum shall be developed in consultation with the Committee on Education and AAPT as appropriate.

Honors/Awards/Fellowships Email:

If you are receiving this email, then you are on the APS FEd Honors/Awards/Fellowships Committee. The committee members are:

The Honors/Awards/Fellowships Committee oversees the following:
1) nominations to APS Fellow
2) Excellence in Physics Education Award
3) Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction

The first order of business will probably be to convene the committee (either by email or zoom) to talk about the timeline and solicit the membership for nominations.

Important Deadlines:
Committee is formed by May 1
APS Fellowship Nominations due June 1
Applications for the two awards close June 1

Charge from the Bylaws is: 

1. Fellowship Committee: The Fellowship Committee shall consist of the Past Chair and up to five members appointed by the Chair, in consultation with the Past Chair, no later than May 1 of each year. All appointed members must be members of the Forum. The Past Chair shall serve as Chair of the Fellowship Committee. This Fellowship Committee shall solicit the nomination of candidates for Fellowship, review the qualification of such candidates, and report its recommendation to the Executive Committee for approval before the submission is made to the Head of the Honors program of the Society. The term of office for members of the Fellowship Committee shall be one year.

Nominating Email:

If you are receiving this, you are on the APS FEd Nominating Committee this year! The committee has the members:

To get started, the chair of the committee should plan to meet with the vice-chair of the committee to answer any questions about the committee or the timeline. Then, the chair of the committee can either convene the committee by email or zoom.

The first order of business is to get a member appointed by the APS Chief Executive Officer to the committee. To do this, the committee will need to "provide your unit's 2024 Nominating Committee membership roster, as well as a short-list of members (3-4 individuals) who could serve to broaden the committee's reach and whose sphere of influence might help to identify potential leaders to stand for unit election.” Send this to the APS Corporate Secretary and APS Corporate Governance Associate. This should be Jeanette (russo@aps.org) and Vicki (lautsch@aps.org). After that, the work of the committee usually begins in earnest during the summer. 

Important Deadlines are:
August 1 -- solicit nominations from the membership by email or newsletter or both. (This could be earlier.)
end of August -- Executive Committee meeting -- share list of nominees with the rest of the Executive Committee.
October 15 -- have a slate of candidates with bios and statements ready to give to APS.

Charge from our Bylaws: 

The Nominating Committee shall consist of the ViceChair, and at least two members appointed by the Forum Chair, in consultation with the Vice-Chair, no later than August 1 of each year. All appointed members must be members of the Forum. The APS Chief Executive Officer shall be invited to appoint one member to the Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee shall prepare a slate of candidates for election to the Executive Committee in accord with Article VII of these Bylaws. The term of office for members of the Nominating Committee shall be one year.

Article VII - Election and Tenure of the Officers, Forum Councilor, and Members-at-large

1. Qualifications: Officers, the Forum Councilor, and Members-at-Large must be members of the Forum on Education. The APS/AAPT Members-at-Large must also be members of AAPT. The Graduate Student Member-at-Large must be enrolled in graduate school at the time of his or her nomination. The Graduate Student Member-at-Large may serve his or her full two-year term even if he or she graduates during that term.

2. Nomination and Election Procedures

1. Nomination Procedure: The Nominating Committee is responsible for preparing a slate of candidates for each year’s election. No later than August 1 of each year, the Vice-Chair shall invite, via email or the Forum newsletter, all Forum members to suggest candidates for all positions that will be elected that year. If as many as twenty-five members of the Forum, or 1% of the membership, whichever is larger, suggest the same person for the same office by October 1, that person shall be deemed nominated. The Nominating Committee, taking into account suggestions received from members, shall nominate at least two candidates for each open position. The Nominating Committee shall consult with the Chair before submitting the nomination of any candidate for a consecutive term. The Nominating Committee shall submit the slate of candidates to the Secretary-Treasurer not later than October 15 of each year.

2. Balloting Procedure: The Secretary-Treasurer shall distribute election ballots to all Members, electronically and/or by mail, not later than November 15 of each year, setting a closing date four weeks after balloting has commenced. Ballots shall be returned to and counted by the Secretary-Treasurer or his or her designee. The election shall be decided by a plurality of those voting. If there is a tie, the Executive Committee shall decide the election, with the Chair voting only in the case of a tie among the other Executive Committee members. The Secretary-Treasurer shall communicate the results of the election to the Executive Committee and to the Society Corporate Secretary before January 1.

3. Procedures For Members-At-Large: The six General and APS/AAPT Members-At-Large shall be elected by the membership for three-year staggered terms in two equal categories, General Member-At-Large and APS/AAPT Member-At-Large, of three members each. The Graduate Student Member-at-Large shall be elected for a two-year term.

3. Terms of Office of the Executive Committee: The tenure of the members of the Executive Committee shall begin at the beginning of the calendar year following their election.

1. Vice-Chair: The Vice-Chair shall be elected by the membership for a one year term and shall successively become Chair-Elect, Chair, and Past Chair in the following years. The Chair shall not be eligible for the Vice-Chair office for four years after service as Past Chair.

2. Secretary-Treasurer: The Secretary-Treasurer shall be elected by the membership for a term of three years and may not serve more than two consecutive terms.

3. Forum Councilor: The term of office of a Forum Councilor shall begin at the beginning of the calendar year following his or her election. The Forum Councilor shall serve for a term of four years and may not serve more than two consecutive terms.

4. Members-At-Large: Each General and APS/AAPT Member-At-Large shall be elected by the membership for a term of three years and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The tenure of a Member-At-Large of the Executive Committee shall terminate in the event of his/her assumption of a post as an Officer of the Forum, either through election or appointment, and the unexpired portion of his or her term shall be filled as hereinafter provided for a vacancy. The Graduate Student Member-at-Large shall be elected by the membership for a term of two years and may not serve a second term.

4. Vacancies in Office: If a vacancy occurs in the office of Chair, the Chair-Elect shall become Chair and shall serve as Chair also in the following year. The ViceChair shall serve simultaneously as Vice Chair and Chair-Elect during the remainder of the term and shall continue to serve as Chair-Elect in the following year.
   If a vacancy occurs in the office of Chair-Elect, the Vice-Chair shall become Chair-Elect and shall advance to Chair in the following year. In this case, and also if the office of Vice-Chair becomes vacant for other reasons, the office of Vice-Chair shall remain vacant for the remainder of the term. If the Vice-Chair position is vacant before or during the service of the Nominating Committee, the Chair shall appoint a member of the Executive Committee to be Chair of the Nominating Committee. The offices of both Chair-Elect and Vice-Chair will be filled at the next scheduled election.
   If vacancies occur in the offices of both the Chair and the Chair-Elect, the ViceChair shall become Chair and shall continue to serve as Chair in the following year. In this case, the Executive Committee will appoint one of their members to serve the remaining term as Chair-Elect, and the offices of both Chair-Elect and Vice-Chair will be filled at the next scheduled election.
   If a vacancy occurs in any other elected position, the Executive Committee may appoint a member of the Forum to fill the position until the next scheduled election or may leave the position vacant. If the vacancy continues beyond the next scheduled election, the position will be filled for a shortened term at the next scheduled election.
   If any member of the Executive Committee is absent from two consecutive Annual Meetings of the Executive Committee without consent of the Chair, that position shall be declared vacant. A member is considered present if he or she attends either in person or electronically.

5. Official Year: The official year shall be the calendar year.

Travel Reimbursement Email:

If you are receiving this email, then FEd will reimburse your travel expenses to the 2025 APS Global Summit. This year (2025) the FEd will reimburse travel expenses for the Chair, Chair-Elect, Vice Chair, grad student member, and the previous grad student member for the Global Summit. 

To get a travel reimbursement, you need to send an email to accountspayable@aps.org with the Travel Reimbursement Form filled out. Please cc me (the Secretary/Treasurer). Then, I will respond and say I approve the reimbursement.

Website Update

The Secretary/Treasurer should add information to the website as needed and keep information up to date on the FEd Engage Website. To submit a request to update the website go to the Website Request Form.

Serving on Subcommittees

The Secretary/Treasurer serves on the Membership Committee as a help to the Chair. This Committee responds to Member requests which often come to the Secretary/Treasurer and are followed up by the Secretary/Treasurer. Secretary/Treasurer also Chairs Mini-Grant Committee. The Mini-Grant Committee solicits and reviews applications in November/December. Then, Secretary/Treasurer process award winner receipts all year long.

Running the Election

The Secretary/Treasurer also helps administer the election. Please see the Election Manual for more details. The nominating committee should forward the slate (name, picture, bio, and statement for each candidate) to the Secretary/Treasurer who then forwards this to the APS Unit Operations Coordinator (apsunits@aps.org). The Unit Operations Coordinator then forwards it to the person that actually creates the ballot (currently done in SurveyMonkey). Once the ballot is ready, the Secretary/Treasurer will receive an email to look everything over and give the go ahead. When the election closes, the Secretary/Treasurer will get an email with the election results. They should then email: 1) the candidates to notify them of the results of the election, 2) the FEd Executive Committee to notify them of the results of the election and thank the outgoing members, and 3) the FEd membership by sending the standard template email through the Unit Service Desk. Remember to update the fedexec@aps.org email list in January by emailing the new email list to apsunits@aps.org. 

Waiving Registration Fees

The Secretary/Treasurer can set it so that particular people (e.g. Chair, Chair Elect, Graduate Student Member) do not need to pay registration fees to attend an APS meeting. Instead, this registration fee can be paid directly from the FEd budget. To set this up, complete the Registration Request Form well ahead of the deadline for registration.

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