Policy Manual

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

Section 1. Scope

1.1 These policies bind every member at every Society event and activity, in person and online, and every role holder while acting for the Society.

1.2 They sit below University policy, the Constitution, and the Bylaws. Where they conflict, the higher document governs.

1.3 The Council adopts and changes these policies by a two-thirds vote and tells members of any change within seven days.

Section 2. Code of Conduct

2.1 Treat everyone at a Society activity with courtesy, whatever their views, language, college, or background.

2.2 Critique the work, never the person. Feedback in workshops and editorial meetings is specific, kind, and useful.

2.3 Harassment, bullying, intimidation, discrimination, and unwanted physical contact or attention are not tolerated, in person or online. Jokes, comments, or content that demean anyone for their gender, ethnicity, religion, sect, language, nationality, disability, or appearance are harassment, whatever the intent.

2.4 Keep your commitments, or say early that you cannot. Stepping back is always allowed; disappearing is not.

2.5 Respect the University’s rules, its property, and the rooms and people who host the Society. Leave every room as you found it.

2.6 Keep confidential what is confidential: unpublished submissions, votes, personal data, and conduct cases.

2.7 Declare any conflict of interest, and do not vote on, judge, or approve a matter in which you have one. Personal gifts given because of a Society role are declined, except small tokens of thanks.

2.8 No alcohol, drugs, or weapons at any Society activity, and no one attends one intoxicated.

2.9 The same rules apply in the Society’s groups and channels and whenever someone speaks as a member of the Society.

Section 3. Safeguarding

3.1 Some Society work reaches people under 18, above all the high school students in Qalam. Their safety comes before any event, story, or photograph.

3.2 Approval and consent. Qalam runs only with a partner school and a named teacher, the written consent of the school and of every student’s parents, and the written approval of Student Life. Without all of these, no session takes place.

3.3 Two adults, always. At least two adults are present at every session or activity with anyone under 18. No member is ever alone with a minor, and there are no one-to-one meetings, in person or online.

3.4 Contact through the teacher. Members contact high school students only through their teacher: no personal numbers, social media, messaging apps, or email. High school students never use the Diwan or Get involved.

3.5 Mentors. Qalam mentors are members who apply through Get involved. The Qalam lead briefs them on this policy before their first session, and they work in pairs.

3.6 Publishing. A high school student’s work appears in Qirtas only with the written consent of the school and the parents, bylined with the student’s first name, last initial and school; the full name appears only on the certificate. High school students are photographed only with a parent’s consent (SAL-EXB-01 · F-38), named by first name only, and never shown with their faces on public channels. Qalam is never filmed for Next Stop or any public video.

3.7 Concerns. Anyone worried about a young person’s safety tells the President (or the Acting President) or the Faculty Advisor the same day. The Society does not investigate; it refers the concern at once to Student Life and the partner school.

3.8 A breach of this policy is a conduct matter under section 4. The person concerned steps back from all work with minors while it is decided.

Section 4. Complaints and Speaking Up

4.1 Anyone, member or not, may raise a concern about conduct or about the Society with any officer, the Faculty Advisor, or Student Life. A concern about the President goes to the Vice President and the Faculty Advisor.

4.2 The concern is acknowledged within three days and handled confidentially. Most concerns are settled informally, by a conversation, an apology, or a clarification; the person who raised it decides whether to go further.

4.3 A formal case is heard by a panel of three: the Vice President as chair, one other Council member, and one voting member not on the Council. Anyone with a conflict of interest is replaced.

4.4 The person concerned receives the concern in writing, has at least five days to answer it, and may bring a supporter who is a student or staff member of the University.

4.5 Outcomes are in proportion to the conduct: no action, guidance, a written warning, suspension from activities for a stated period, or a recommendation of removal to the Council under Constitution Article VI. The decision is given in writing, with reasons, within 14 days of the hearing, and may be appealed once, within seven days, to the Faculty Advisor.

4.6 Where anyone’s safety is at risk, the President and the Vice President may suspend a member from activities at once, pending the case, and tell the Faculty Advisor.

4.7 Anything that may involve a crime, harassment under University policy, or a risk to a young person is referred straight to Student Life. The Society does not investigate it.

4.8 Speaking up. Anyone who believes Society property, something provided by Student Life or a partner, or money collected for a charity is being misused tells the President or, if the President is involved, the Faculty Advisor. The Faculty Advisor may check the records at once.

4.9 Nobody is disadvantaged for raising a concern in good faith, even if it turns out to be mistaken.

4.10 Case records are confidential, kept by the General Secretary, and deleted two years after the case closes.

Section 5. Photography and Consent

5.1 The Director of Media’s team covers Society events in photographs and video, with consent. Each event’s lead requests coverage when planning the event.

5.2 At every covered event, a notice says that photography is taking place. Anyone may ask not to be photographed, and photographers respect this without question.

5.3 Crowd photographs may be published; close-ups of people who have not agreed are not. Anyone featured in an interview, a video, or Next Stop agrees in writing before publication, on the Society’s release form on the site, signing by typing their name.

5.4 People praying, in distress, or in private moments are not photographed.

5.5 Anyone may ask for a photograph or video of themselves to be removed. The Society takes it down within 24 hours, with no reasons needed.

5.6 Photographs of anyone under 18 follow section 3.

Section 6. Charity Collections

6.1 Money collected for a charity at a Society event, at Second Chapter or any other collection, belongs to the charity, never to the Society. It is never used for costs. Every dinar goes to the charity.

6.2 The charity. Each charity is checked by the Director of Partnerships (who they are, whom they help, and whether they will give a receipt), approved by the Council, and kept in the partner register.

6.3 Before the collection. The event’s lead owns the collection and briefs its cashiers, who are the event’s volunteers. Before the collection starts, Student Life advises how collected cash is held overnight and handed over.

6.4 Each day. At the close of each day, two people count the money, with the General Secretary as witness. The count is recorded and signed, and the money is kept sealed. It is never kept overnight by one student.

6.5 Handover. The money is handed over in full to the charity, with a witness, against a signed receipt.

6.6 Impact report. Each collection is reported in an impact report: what was collected, when it was handed over, and what the charity did with it.

6.7 The record. The General Secretary keeps each collection’s record (the daily counts, the receipt, and the impact report) as a Notion page linked to the event. Collections have no feature on the Society’s site. The Faculty Advisor may check any collection’s record.

Section 7. Privacy in Practice

7.1 What the Society keeps, and why.

• Members’ accounts: name, AUIB email, college, year, and, if a member chooses, a phone number, to run membership and reach members.
• Check-in and RSVPs, to run events and establish voting rights.
• Ballots, to run elections; the site records who has voted, never how.
• Staff hours and service, to write service letters.
• Qirtas submissions, for blind review.
• Six-word pages, to attach each page to its writer’s profile.
• Conduct and complaint records, to handle cases.

7.2 Where it lives. Personal data lives only on the Society’s site, auibsal.org, never in Notion, a spreadsheet, a chat, or anyone’s personal storage. The Society never collects grades, bank details, or identity numbers, and never asks for a student ID number as a separate field: the AUIB email (which contains it) is the account’s identifier, protected like all personal data and never shown publicly.

7.3 Who sees it. Each record is seen only by the role holders who need it. The Register is private, seen only by the Executive Board and the Director of Membership. Members may choose to appear in the members-only directory.

7.4 How long it is kept. Data of members who leave is deleted one year after they leave, except their name and the roles they held. Ballot data is kept for one year, and case records for two years after the case closes. Qalam consent forms and attendance are kept three years after the program, and incident records seven years (or longer if AUIB’s rules require), then shredded or deleted. Unpublished Write for Qirtas submissions are deleted twelve months after the decision.

7.5 The Typewriter Tour. From spring 2027 there is no paper at the Tour: no consent slips and no kept pages. At the station the writer joins on auibsal.org by a QR code, a volunteer photographs the typed page and attaches it to the new account, and the writer takes the original home. The writer chooses in their account who sees the page (private, their profile, or the Tour’s page); it is private by default, and that choice is the consent record. The same rule applies to everyone, faculty and staff included. No student ID number is asked for as a separate field; the writer’s AUIB email is the account’s identifier. There is no paper archive.

7.6 The spring 2026 Tour. The 2026 pages are scanned and their consent is in the import file. Once the import is done, the consent slips are shredded and the originals are offered back at the membership table; unclaimed originals are shredded at the end of fall 2026.

7.7 Member data is never shared outside the Society or used for anything other than Society business, including campaigning in Society elections.

7.8 Members may ask to see or delete their data at any time through their account or the General Secretary.

Section 8. Sustainability

8.1 The Society states only what it does. It makes no green claims and uses no badges it cannot show.

8.2 Forms and tickets are digital by default. People outside the staff fill the Society’s forms on the site, each at its own address (auibsal.org/forms/ followed by the form’s number), signing by typing their name; staff forms are Notion templates; tickets are RSVPs on the site. Paper is only a backup, photographed into the record the same day, and for the two-person cash count at a charity collection (section 6).

8.3 Print only what is needed: the confirmed need, which is the RSVP count plus 10 percent, or the number actually asked for. Booklets keep page counts in multiples of four, as printing requires.

8.4 No single-use decorations at events.

8.5 Books are reused through Second Chapter.

8.6 Shared rides for trips.

8.7 Every email and the site footer carry the line “Paperless by default. Books reused through Second Chapter.”

8.8 Each year the Society holds one event for Earth Day (April 22) and registers it on EarthDay.org’s events map.