Article 1. MSA Meetings

MSA meetings will be of three types in nature: planning meetings, discussion meetings, and general body meetings. Planning meetings and discussion meetings may be called by any member of the executive committee through an email sent out to all other members of the executive committee. General body meetings must be called by the president, or through a request sent to the president by one or more members of the executive committee. Input of the faculty sponsor regarding issues on the agenda may be solicited for any of the three types of meetings.

Article 2. Planning Meetings

These meetings are aimed at planning specific events hosted by the Rice MSA. Planning meetings will be conducted as defined in Section 2.2. They must each be preceded by a brief agenda emailed to all officers. The agenda may be modified during the meeting, but is necessary to ensure that all urgent discussions are held. At any point during the planning meeting if one of the officers has a concern regarding the specific topic being discussed at that time, the officer must signal to the president and wait to be addressed. After a concern is raised, a discussion will take place amongst the officers regarding the ways to alleviate the specific concern and possible compromises that can be made. If no agreement can be made, the discussion on the specific concern will continue at a discussion meeting (see Section 3.3). After the head organizer(s) of the specific event has gone through all the information regarding the event, a general discussion will follow that will include any issues not addressed during the event presentation as well as a go/no go vote for the event which requires a 5/7 majority.

Article 3. Discussion Meetings

Any issues regarding events that could not be solved during the planning meeting will be brought into a discussion meeting. This meeting will be preceded by an agenda emailed to all officers, and discussion will include only those issues that are on the agenda. All officers will be invited to state their opinion regarding the conflict, supporting their opinions with Islamic sources (i.e. Quran, sunah and fatawah) that they find relevant to the issue and to the nature of the conflict, and suggesting possible compromises. After all views have been expressed, the officers may choose by consensus to take a vote on the options for resolving the conflict. Such a vote would require a 5/7 majority for the selected option to be incorporated into the event planning. If no vote is taken, discussions on the conflict may be continued for three more days via emails sent to the entire executive committee. Any email that is not addressed to the entire executive committee will not be taken into account in the decision making process. At this point, the faculty sponsor will also be called upon for guidance. After three days, a vote may be taken via emails sent to the president as well as the head chairperson(s) of the event. This vote requires a 5/7 majority for the selected compromise to be implemented. If on the third day no vote is taken, the discussions will be dropped and the event will carry on as originally planned with no changes made.

Article 4. General Body Meetings

General body meetings will include all members of the Rice Muslim community (non-Rice Muslims will be welcome to attend, but may not express their views and opinions) as well as any non-Muslim Rice students who have shown active participation in Rice MSA activities. These meetings will be mediated by the faculty sponsor, and will address any general conflicts that could not be solved in the discussion meetings. Conflicts addressed at general body meetings will not include specific problems with specific events, but rather the general manner in which MSA activities are to take place. Such a meeting is to be held if a similar conflict is brought up for multiple events, indicating a problem with the structural functioning of the MSA instead of a problem with the planning of any specific event. All attending voting members (see Section 1.4) will be allowed to carry out discussion and debate regarding the conflict, given that all discussions remain good-natured and non-aggressive and remain within the grounds of conflict. Following the discussion, all attending voting members will be able to participate in a ballot vote that will determine the course of action for the MSA.