PERLOC member eligibility and role

1. Who is eligible to be on PERLOC, and what does PERLOC do?
   
   1. Regarding eligibility, the updated bylaws say: "Candidates for PERLOC must be PERTG members at the time of their election. Councilors must be PERTG members throughout their tenure on PERLOC."
   2. According to the bylaws, any current member of PERTG may nominate someone. Nominees are contacted to check their interest, so in practice, nominations by non-PERTG members are also possible.
   3. To be a PERTG member, select to become a member of the Physics Education Research Topical Group when renewing your AAPT membership; there is a nominal cost. You may also email AAPT's director of membership (Mike Bronsan, mbrosnan@aapt.org) to check your PERTG membership status or to become a member at any time.
2. For an explanation of PERLOC responsibilities, time commitment, benefits, and risks, please see the PERLOC Member Summary of Roles and Responsibilities.

Election process

1. Before AAPT Summer meetings, PERLOC members will reach out to area committee chairs to see if they would allow time for an announcement about nominating new members of PERLOC. If allowed, PERLOC members will make announcements during area committee meetings during AAPT Summer meetings. (The goal is to reach a wider range of potential nominees than the PERTG listserv and/or AAPT Communities site.)
2. By the third Friday in August, the RiPE committee chair will send an official call for nominations to PERTG listserv and AAPT Communities site, post to PER Central, send to AAPT Area Committee chairs, and PER affinity group listservs (e.g., PERCoGS, POC in PER group). In the email, PERLOC will encourage community members to widely share the solicitation. Weekly reminders will be sent for four weeks.


1. Two weeks after the call for nominations, PERLOC will check the nominations to assess diversity (including diversity of identities as well as positions/roles within the community) of the candidate pool. PERLOC may then check back with the people listed in step 2 and area committee chairs.
2. Note that the current bylaws limit PERLOC's ability to extend the nomination phase:  As long as there is one candidate for each open position, the election must move to the next phase, regardless of the diversity of the candidate pool.
3. As needed, PERLOC will send out additional calls and encourage PERTG members to reach out to individual community members to further deepen the pool of nominations. Targeted timeline for this is mid-July through mid-August.
   At the end of the 4 weeks, assuming there are enough candidates, the next phase will start in one week.


1. If there are not enough nominations, PERLOC will repeat steps 1 through 3 with additional zeal until there is 1 nomination per open position.
4. If there are many nominations (i.e., more than four per position), the first phase of the election runs for two weeks to find the top four per position. Candidates with the most votes become finalists.
5. One week after finalists are selected, the final election is held through AAPT.  

Please contact the current PERLOC chair with general questions, concerns, or comments about the election process. For questions about a specific year's election process, please contact the current RiPE committee chair.