PPP Home

Section XIII.  Format of Resolutions

All resolutions submitted to the national office for consideration by the House of Delegates are classified as either: (1) Resolutions of Principle; (2) Resolutions of Internal Affairs; or (3) Constitution and Bylaws Amendments. The House of Delegates requires that the following guidelines be adhered to for all resolutions submitted for consideration:

1.             If a member desires to submit a proposal with aspects pertaining to both “principles” and “internal affairs,” two separate resolutions must be submitted;

2.             All proposed resolutions must be accompanied by at least a summary of information supporting the  feasibility of, need for and interest in all activities delineated within the body of the  resolution;

3.             Amendments to the three documents must adhere to the “Format of Resolutions” section outlined in the “Official Call”;

4.             All proposed resolutions must be neutral in vocabulary with regard to gender, unless a particular gender is specifically intended; and,

5.             The source of all statistics in resolution proposals must be footnoted and a single copy of that source be available to the Reference Committee on request.

A.            Resolutions of Principle.  Any resolution pertaining to a particular issue or problem related to the external interests of the Association will be classified as a “Resolution of Principle.” All such resolutions accepted at the sessions of the House of Delegates are compiled in The Preamble, Purposes and Principles of the American Medical Student Association.

B.            Resolutions of Internal Affairs.  Any resolution  pertaining to goals, priorities, suggested activities, programs or projects and mandates requiring resources of the Association will be classified as a “Resolution of Internal Affairs.”  All Resolutions of Internal Affairs passed at the sessions of the House of Delegates will be referred to the Board of Trustees for consideration and action. The Board of Trustees is responsible for reporting back to the House of Delegates, at the next Annual Meeting, on action taken regarding each Resolution  of Internal Affairs. The report will be presented to the Delegates by the Chairperson of the House as the Board of Trustees’ representative.

C.            Resolved Sections of Resolutions.  The House of Delegates requires that all resolved sections of resolutions be “freestanding” and without reference to the preceding introductory statement and/or compendium of information.  The House of Delegates also requires that the specific section of the document to be amended be clearly articulated within the body of the resolved section of the resolution and portions to be superseded be clearly identified for deletion.

D.            Preservation of Introduction Clauses and Indexing of Resolutions.   Since the introduction to resolutions often contains valuable information about the author’s intent, the introduction clauses shall be preserved by the AMSA national office on the AMSA Web site, beginning with the 2002 House of Delegates. This info will be password protected and accessed only with a valid AMSA i.d. number. (2002) The PPP shall be indexed by subject. In addition, beginning in 1985, the year of adoption and amendment should be appended to each statement or principle so that one can refer to The Preamble, Purposes and Principles and see in which year any principle was adopted or amended.  The above mentioned subject index, as well as the year of principle adoption shall be included within The Preamble, Purpose and Principles.

E.             Compilation and Distribution of AMSA Policy.  The three documents of the Association will be compiled on an annual basis and distributed to Chapter Officers and other interested individuals.