The chief Mission of the Deans is to create and supervise the nomination and election of those to be awarded. The Deans, both collectively and individually, shall also serve as an important advisory to the Academy's Board of Directors.

Click here for a list of the Founding Deans.

Each Dean shall serve a term of three years. The terms shall be staggered so that every twelve months there shall be seven outgoing Deans and seven incoming Deans. No Dean may serve more than two consecutive terms. There shall be no distinction between the power and authority of "at large" Deans and "Regional" Deans.

The Deans will be responsible for organizing the nomination of (new) Deans, which nominations shall be submitted to the general membership once each year. The Deans will supervise the election process to ensure accuracy and fairness. Votes submitted by the Deans for the election of Deans will carry no more and no less weight than votes submitted by individual members.

In the event that a Dean does not fulfill his or her term, for whatever reason, the Deans will be solely responsible for the timing and method of replacement. Such determination will be made after formal concurrence of a majority of the sitting Deans both as to the process of replacement and the formal seating of the replacement person. In such instances, the person selected shall serve the remaining portion of the original term for the seat filled.

The first election of seven new Deans will take place not later than December 2003 with subsequent elections held each twelve months thereafter.

There will be eight regionally designated seats, each selected from the following geographic regions from which Region where the Dean must be a resident during his or her term of office.

The South and West Pacific;

East Asia;

South and Central Asia;

Mideast and Gulf Region;

Africa;

Europe, including the island nations of the Mediterranean, Turkey and Russia;

South America and Central America, including Mexico and the Carribean;

Canada and the United States, including Puerto Rico and Guam.

Not less than once each four years the Deans will make a determination as to the designation of country to region; such determination shall be consistent with all awards made on the basis of regional geographic boundaries.

At Large Seats:

There shall be twelve "at large" seats to which Deans may be selected without regard to nationality or country of residence.

The Deans shall be solely and exclusively responsible for the process of nomination and the nomination outcome for all those to be considered for all awards presented during the Annual Academy Award ceremony. Once the nomination process has been completed, the Deans shall then be solely and exclusively responsible for the collection and counting of votes by the Academy members on a fair and accurate basis.

In that connection the Deans shall develop clearly defined rules, regulations, procedures, restrictions about the processes, together with any and all particulars with respect to any and all awards.

All of this shall conducted in a transparent process to include taking of minutes of all formal meetings which minutes shall be promptly published to a web site viewable by all Academy Members.

The by-laws of the Academy shall reflect the independent nature of the Deans so they may be able to conduct an award process of the high standards necessary to engender trust, fairness and acclaim.

If you would like to help in this journey, please write to John Hibbs.

For more information, please write to Xenia Stanford.