Member Handbook

Proposed until the Founding Meeting on Tuesday, March 30, 2027.

For members and anyone thinking of joining: what the Society is, how to join, vote and take part, and what you can expect from us.

1. The Society in brief

The AUIB Society of Arts and Letters is the student society for literature and creative expression at the American University of Iraq – Baghdad. It is open to every AUIB student, free, and run by its members.

• Qirtas is the Society’s paper of news, letters and art, published online as pieces are ready, with one printed Edition a year. It has its own editors and editorial independence.
• The Company is the Society’s theater company. Its performances are open to all and free.
• Next Stop is the Society’s video show, a reality-sitcom about AUIB, made by the Society’s media team.
• Events happen through the year: writing workshops, readings with a guest, book discussions, listening sessions, debates, trips and performances. Each term the Council sets a calendar with at least one event a month. Anyone may suggest one.
• Two traditions. The Typewriter Tour takes the Society Typewriter across campus in the spring club fair week, and anyone can type six words. Second Chapter is a book drive and sale for a charity at the fall club fair, from October 2027.

The year 2026–27 is the Society’s interim year. A founding team serves until the first elections in October 2027, and the Founding Meeting on Tuesday, March 30, 2027, adopts the Society’s founding documents.

2. How to join

Membership is open to every AUIB student, with no dues, audition or portfolio, and without discrimination of any kind.

1. Go to auibsal.org/join, the page for new members.
2. Sign up with your AUIB email at auibsal.org/membership (or auibsal.org/sign-up). This creates your account.
3. Join the members’ group on Telegram and start Hudhud (@auibsal_bot); the links come in your welcome email.
4. Come to an event. What’s on (auibsal.org/events) lists them all.

You can also join in person, on the spot, at the Society’s membership table at a club fair or at the Typewriter Tour: scan the QR code and sign up on auibsal.org.

Your account (auibsal.org/membership) holds your profile, your RSVPs and check-ins, your six-word pages, your notifications and settings, and your choice about the members’ directory.

3. Membership classes

Partners and guests are not members. Partners are organizations in the Society’s partner register. Guests may come to open events and may create a guest account to RSVP.

4. What you can do

Come to events

• Every event is on What’s on (auibsal.org/events). Some are open (just come), some take an RSVP (book a place), and a few are private (invited people only, such as a Council meeting).
• RSVP and check in at the door: check-in is how attendance counts toward your vote.
• Most spring 2027 events are on Tuesdays, 4:00–5:30 p.m.; the room is confirmed at the start of each term.
• You can help run an event by taking one of its volunteer shifts, listed on the event’s page.
• Anyone may suggest an event. Send a short pitch to the Director of Events through Help Desk or [email protected]: what it is, who it is for, when and where, and what it needs. If the Council agrees, it goes on the term calendar.

Write for Qirtas

Members can send work to Qirtas at any time through Write for Qirtas (auibsal.org/qirtas/write): news, opinion, poetry, fiction, art, photography, video and more. Everything is read blind. Qirtas’s own rules are in SAL-EDT-02 Qirtas Staff Manual.

Get involved

Get involved, on auibsal.org, lists the open roles: Council and team roles, event teams, Qalam mentors, and auditions for the Company. You apply in one step. You do not need to be a writer or an artist; you need to be curious and honest about your time.

• Everyone newly joining a team or appointed to a role serves their first term on probation, which is also their trial; the person who appointed them then confirms them.
• Auditions for the Company are posted on Get involved at least nine days ahead. No experience is needed, and no role is promised in advance.

Type six words

Six-word stories are written only on the Society Typewriter: at the Typewriter Tour, or at the membership table when you join in person. There is no paperwork: you join on auibsal.org by the QR code at the table, a volunteer photographs your page and attaches it to your new account, and you take the original home. In your account you choose who sees the page: only you (the default), your profile, or the Tour’s page under Join. That choice is your consent, and you can change it at any time. The Society keeps no paper and never asks for your student ID number as a separate field: your AUIB email, which contains it, is your account’s identifier, protected like all your personal data and never shown publicly.

The Mutanabbi Prize

From April 2028, the Mutanabbi Prize is given at the Annual Meeting for the year’s best work published in Qirtas by a student Member (not Associate or Honorary Members). An outside judge’s score counts for 70 percent and voting members’ online votes for 30 percent. The rules are in SAL-EDT-04 Mutanabbi Prize Rules.

5. Voting, elections and meetings

Who votes

• A voting member is a member in good standing who has attended at least two events or general meetings in the current academic year, as recorded by check-in.
• Associate and Honorary Members do not vote.
• You can vote online on auibsal.org on any members’ vote, or in person at the meeting.

Elections

• The three officers (the President, the Vice President and the General Secretary) are elected by voting members by secret ballot, online over a set window, with a voting point in person at the meeting. The site records who has voted, never how.
• The Editor-in-Chief is elected by Qirtas’s staff. The other five directors are appointed by the President, with the Executive Board’s approval, after an open call on Get involved.
• To stand, you must be a member in good standing, enrolled at AUIB, a member for at least one term, with a cumulative GPA of at least 2.0. You consent on the nomination form to Student Life checking your GPA, so no one asks you for grades: the Elections Committee sends the candidate list to Student Life before the ballot opens, Student Life answers only “eligible” or “not eligible,” and the Society never sees grades.
• When: the first elections are in October 2027, and the first elected Council serves until May 2028. From 2028, elections are held each April, with results at the Annual Meeting. The term of office is one year, from the new Council’s first meeting in May.

Members’ meetings

• General meetings are for all members, every two weeks in term: news, plans, ideas and questions. They count toward the two you need to vote.
• The Annual Meeting is held each April from 2028: the election results, the year’s reports and the Mutanabbi Prize.
• Special meetings may be called by the Council or by members, with two weeks’ notice.
• The Founding Meeting, on Tuesday, March 30, 2027, adopts the Society’s founding documents.
• Quorum for a members’ meeting is 10 percent of voting members or 15, whichever is lower.
• Motions are proposed and seconded by voting members. Amendments to the Constitution or Bylaws need a two-thirds vote, with the text sent to members in writing two weeks before.
• Meetings follow Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, where the Constitution and Bylaws are silent.

6. Good standing and the Code of Conduct

You are a member in good standing while you follow the Code of Conduct. In brief:

• Treat everyone with courtesy, whatever their views, language, college or background.
• Critique the work, never the person.
• No harassment, bullying, intimidation, discrimination, or unwanted physical contact or attention, in person or online. Jokes or content that demean anyone for their gender, ethnicity, religion, sect, language, nationality, disability or appearance are harassment, whatever the intent.
• Keep your commitments, or say early that you cannot. Stepping back is always allowed.
• Respect the University’s rules, its property, and the rooms and people who host the Society.
• Keep confidential what is confidential: unpublished submissions, votes, personal data and conduct cases.
• Declare any conflict of interest.
• No alcohol, drugs or weapons at any Society activity.
• The same rules apply in the Society’s groups and channels, and whenever you speak as a member of the Society.

The Society is nonpartisan and nonsectarian: no party politics, religion, sect or ethnicity as a joke or a jab, at events or in its channels.

Full text: SAL-GOV-03 Policy Manual Policy Manual.

7. Privacy, the Register and the directory

• The Register of members is private. Only the Executive Board and the Director of Membership see it.
• What the Society keeps: your account details (name, AUIB email, college, year, and a phone number only if you choose to add one), your RSVPs and check-ins, whether you voted (never how), staff hours if you serve, your Qirtas submissions for blind review, your six-word pages, and any conduct record.
• Personal data lives only on auibsal.org. It is never shared outside the Society or used for anything but Society business, including campaigning in Society elections.
• You can see or delete your data at any time through your account or the General Secretary. Data of members who leave is deleted one year after they leave, except their name and the roles they held.
• The members’ directory is opt-in and members-only. You choose in your account whether to appear in it, and can change your mind at any time.

Full text: SAL-GOV-04 Privacy Notice Privacy Notice.

Photographs and video

The Society’s media team photographs and films events, with consent. A notice at each covered event says so. If you would rather not appear, take a camera-shy sticker at the door, or just say so; photographers respect it without question. Anyone may ask for a photograph or video of themselves to be removed, and it comes down within 24 hours, no reasons needed.

8. Channels

Hudhud keeps the members’ group to members. If you are in the group but have not signed up on auibsal.org, Hudhud warns you a week before removing you. Signing up keeps you in.

The Society does not use TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp or Snapchat. Telegram is for talking: nothing is recorded there. Each post is in one language; English and Arabic are separate posts.

9. Certificates and service letters

• If you serve on the Council, the Qirtas masthead or a Society team, the Society records your hours and service, and writes you a service letter on request. Ask the Director of Membership.
• If you volunteer on an event’s shifts, Student Life’s own logbook records it.
• Certificates are given only for finishing Qalam, Qirtas’s summer program for high school students, and for the Mutanabbi Prize. There are none for officers, staff or members.

10. How to raise a concern

Anyone, member or not, may raise a concern about conduct or about the Society.

1. Raise it on auibsal.org (confidential), or with any officer, the Faculty Advisor or Student Life. A concern about the President goes to the Vice President and the Faculty Advisor.
2. Harassment, safety, a possible crime and anything involving someone under 18 go straight to Student Life. The Society does not investigate them.
3. Your concern is acknowledged within three days and handled confidentially. Most are settled informally; you decide whether to go further.
4. A formal case is heard by a panel of three, and a decision is given in writing with reasons. It may be appealed once, to the Faculty Advisor.
5. Nobody is disadvantaged for raising a concern in good faith, even if it turns out to be mistaken.

The full procedure is in SAL-GOV-03 Policy Manual, section 4.

11. Leaving the Society

Membership ends when you resign (through your account or by telling the Director of Membership), when you leave AUIB, or by removal. No one is removed from membership without written notice of the reasons and a hearing at which they may answer. If you leave, your data is deleted after one year, except your name and the roles you held.

Related documents

• SAL-GOV-01 Constitution Constitution
• SAL-GOV-02 Bylaws Bylaws
• SAL-GOV-03 Policy Manual Policy Manual
• SAL-GOV-04 Privacy Notice Privacy Notice
• SAL-GOV-05 Terms of Use Terms of Use
• SAL-GOV-06 Accessibility Statement Accessibility Statement
• SAL-EDT-02 Qirtas Staff Manual Qirtas Staff Manual
• SAL-MEM-03 Typewriter Tour Playbook