Start a Section

Steps for Proposing and Starting a Section

Create a Petition

The petition must stipulate the name and region of the proposed section and must be signed by at least 20 SIAM members. More signatures indicate stronger support, and the signatures should represent the diversity and breadth of the proposed section. A sample petition is available below.

Write a Letter of Intent

The letter should identify the purpose and activities of the proposed section as well as potential officers to serve during the first year.

Submit Your Petition and Letter of Intent to the SIAM Board of Trustees

The SIAM Board will review your petition. If it is approved, the SIAM President, in consultation with the petitioners, will appoint temporary officers for your section.

Draft Your Section’s Rules of Procedure

Either at the time of petition or after the appointment of temporary officers, your section will need to complete a set of Rules of Procedure. A draft is available below.

Submit Your Rules of Procedure to SIAM

The SIAM Board of Trustees will review your section's Rules of Procedure. Once they are approved by the SIAM Board of Trustees, your Section will become operational.

Normally the appointed officers serve one full term. Elections are held at the end of officers’ terms to fill these positions, as prescribed in the Rules of Procedure.
 
These are the minimal requirements and a summary of the process of creating a section. Further details may be found in the SIAM Bylaws and the documents below.

Submit Your Documents

Criteria for Approval of Sections

• A section should cover a well-defined regional area, possibly non-contiguous.
• A section should have a critical mass of SIAM members or potential SIAM members. The size of this critical mass should be decided on a case-by-case basis, bearing in mind the region in question, and will normally be at least 100.
• When face-to-face meetings are part of the section's plans, consideration should be given to allowing participation at reasonable expense, and this will usually imply that the proposed region is not too large.
• A SIAM section should represent applied and computational mathematics in the entire region it serves. It should not be limited to a relatively small number of institutions. No more than one section should cover the same region.
• Participation in section activities should be open to all institutions in the region with an interest in applied and computational mathematics. The signatures endorsing the petition should reflect this.