The President has a number of responsibilities. (Note: here the role is referred to as President; these duties may be carried out by the President or VP, whoever is doing more of the role)
Some of the President's responsibilities take place at specific times during the year – these are listed in Presidential Timeline.
Leading the Club
The President's main responsibility is to lead the club. This means that they should be available to help with things, but also do a lot of delegating. Examples of this include
- Supervising other officers, including finding them help when needed
- Getting more people involved in running the club
- Running meetings (supposedly the President chairs all of them, but if a meeting is specifically about another officers job (Class Coordinator and approving graduation list), it may make sense for this officer to chair)
- Running elections
- Leading Standing Policy renewals
- Finding people to take care of special events, such as club anniversary dances
- Filling in for other officers until a replacement is found
Liaising with outside organizations
The President is in charge of keeping track of the club's responsibilities as a student group. This includes:
- Sending a representative to the ASA general body meetings
- Requesting office space for Tech Squares every 2 years
- In off years, the publicity coordinator should request bulletin board space
- Submitting membership info and sending out the anti-hazing policy
- Act as host on the registration for club events
Keeping the club happy
The President should keep the club informed and involved in the running of the club. Additionally, they should address problems if they arise. The President is in charge of making sure club members are kept adequately informed of the goings on of the club. As much club business is conducted at open meetings, the Secretary will send out minutes from these meetings. However, the President should make sure that the results of other officer discussions are shared with the club as appropriate.
Typically, emails to the club have been drafted in Google Docs with the link sent to tech-squares-officers@ or officers' Discord for suggestions/editing, which helps ensure they're understandable, nothing gets missed, etc.. tech-squares@ is also moderated; except for weekly announcements, we usually aim to have not-the-sender provide a final review for typos/copying errors before sending the email through.
When things go wrong
A lot of President's job is unpredictable. If things go wrong, the President is the de facto leader of the process. Many years, this will be the majority of the President's job. Two common classes of issues include MIT suddenly changing something (eg, masks are no longer required) and needing to figure out the response, and handling officers who are dropping the ball on some of their responsibilities. If the President doesn't have projects, MIT doesn't change things, and officers are on top of things, the job can be basically dealing with getting new officers (elections+appointments). (I'm not sure when we last had a year where nothing went wrong, though...)