Manual for the founding of a Collegium
by L. Silvanius Florus
At the time of founding the Societas Via Romana we believed that the activity of the Collegia was as the heart of all we wished to do. The remainder of the Societas is primarily a framework and support mechanism for the work of the Collegia.
If you wish to found a new collegium, you are welcome to do so - very welcome. But first consider three things:
1. Is it really related to and consistent with the goals of the Societas Via Romana?
2. Is there another collegium already in existence where the proposed concerns of the new collegium could be dealt with as well or better?
3. Will it work? Often people have an attractive idea, but do not consider what a collegium will really do - then after the initial organising work the mailing list mysteriously falls silent and little is ever done. Consider first very concretely and realistically what exactly the collegium will really do.
Do not worry too much about your competency. You may have an idea that really should be effected by someone with a doctoral degree or two. Don't be discouraged. Someone has to take the first step - and maybe someday someone with a Ph.D. will be rector - and maybe it will even be you!
PREPARE
If you want to form a new institution in the Societas, it is important to understand the rules, practices and spirit of the Societas. The most direct way to do that is to read the Regula of the Societas. Note that an annotated version was presented from July 2001 and is available in the archives of the Comitial List in installments under the title "Reading Through the Regula Together". It might be a good idea to download and print out the Regula and read it more than once.
The Regula is quite clear about collegia. Here is Article VIII dealing with collegia with annotations to help you in braces {}:
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FROM THE REGULA OF THE SVR:VIII. Collegia
1. The Collegia shall be the functional basis of the Societas Via Romana in which its principal activities as divided by theme shall be carried out. These collegia are meant to further the mission and spread of Romanitas in the world and in the Societas, and their purposes shall include, but not be limited to: study, research, re-creation, education, and discussion relating to the Roman and Roman-area civilisation and its appreciation and application in modern times.
{Study means either learning (as of Latin) or research; re-creation means reproducing ancient things or carrying out ancient arts or practices again in the modern day. Roman-area civilisation means all of the civilisations and cultures within or on the borders of the Roman Empire, including their earlier independent forms.}
2. Collegia shall be headed by Rectores, who are to be elected yearly by the members of the several collegia.
{"Several" in formal language may mean "individual" as it does here.}
If there is only one candidate, the prospective members of said collegium can still choose by majority vote not to appoint him Rector.
{In other words, if they vote against the one candidate, he loses.}
The Aediles shall then collectively appoint an interim Prorector until another candidate can be found and voted upon. Whenever a new candidate proposes himself, the Prorector shall conduct balloting within thirty days according to the statues of the collegium. Such candidate shall take office, if unopposed, only by receiving an absolute majority of votes cast.
{A prorector is someone who acts in the place of a rector. An absolute majority means more than half. This is the most dramatic right of interference in the life of a collegium, and you must mention the right of the aediles to do this in your collegiate regula.}
3. Collegia may be founded by a minimum of three members, and after organising themselves internally and electing a Rector, they must submit their application to the Senatus, which shall then vote on its recognition. Should the Senatus decline to grant such recognition, the collegium in question may apply to the Comitia Generalia, whose decision is final for the period of one year from the date of refusal, after which time a new application may be made.
{So, you have a right of appeal and more than one chance.}
Should the Senatus or Comitia officially recognize the Collegium, the Rector thereof and his successors automatically become ex officio members of the Senatus during their tenure in office.
{Being a rector is one way of becoming a senator as well. All the more reason to understand the Regula very well! "Ex officio" means by virtue of being in a certain office. Once one leaves the office, though, he is no longer a senator.}
Collegia may be derecognised by a two-thirds vote of the entire Senatus excluding the Rector of the collegium in question from the calculation and the vote. Collegia may also be derecognised by a majority vote of the Comitia Generalia in which members of the collegium being voted upon shall have full voting rights.
4. Every member of the Societas must be a member of at least one Collegium. Any member losing such minimum membership shall be warned by the Censores within thirty days of their learning of this, and if the member has not received membership in a collegium thirty days from date of censorial warning, he shall be temporarily suspended from the rights of active membership in the Societas until he has reacquired such collegial membership. To facilitate this, the collegia shall be required to promptly forward all new memberships and terminations of membership to the Censores.
{A member may belong to more than one collegium, of course.}
5. Collegia are responsible for their own internal organization, and are not subject to interference by the Senatus or any magistratus, with the exception of the Aediles, whose responsibility it is to ensure that democratic procedures and the protection of individual rights are being carried out in each collegium, and that financial and legal responsibility are being reasonably exercised so as not to bring the Societas into disrepute or threaten its existence or security. The Aediles may request information as they feel necessary from each collegium to carry out this task, and collegia are required to promptly provide all available information so requested. Collegia must also promptly report any changes in their Regulae to the Senatus.
{In fact the Regula of a collegium - its constitution - is carefully controlled by the Senatus to ensure democratic practice and compatibilty with the formal provisions of the Societas. But the day-to-day running of a collegium is in its own hands.}
6. All members of the collegia must be members of the Societas Via Romana or applicants for the same whose confirmation is only contingent upon allegiance to a collegium. Collegia may introduce a class of coadiutores (associates) without voting rights if they wish, and these positions may be made available to non-members of the Societas.
{A collega (or collegianus/a) is necessarily a member of the SVR. Other members of the collegium are given a different name. The term "coadiutor" is not required. You might call them "amici" for example, but you sgould state in the constitution that they are equivalent to coadiutores in the Regula of the Societas.}
7. Collegia may create legal corporations and foundations with the permission of the Senatus. The boards of directors or trustees of such bodies must be made up exclusively of members of the Societas.
{The Societas is autonomous, unregistered, unincorporated, and a sovereign law unto itself. A collegium may be permitted to seek legal recognition of an organism created by that collegium, for example for the purpose of collecting money or holding land or property. If it does so, control must be kept in the hands of the autonomous Societas through its collegium.}
8. Collegia may establish geographically-proximate circuli (circles) to carry out their activities in a limited area. They may also have their own regiones or provincial branches as they may see fit.
{Normally, though, a collegium is first created on the internet. A regio is an area defined by the collegium itself, while a provincial branch means one in a provincia of the Societas.}
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Once you have assimilated the above, you should write a Regula, which is simply an organisational constitution or statute. This should normally have the following parts:
I. Preface, purpose, activities, and self-definition
II. Membership - who, how, what classes and conditions and rights
III. Officers - functions, duties, powers, terms of office
IV. Voting - who, how, when
V. Amendment of the Regula - how
VI. Implementation - who will be in power at the beginning and how long they will serve, when the group comes/came into existence, etc.Advice
For standard prefaces see the regulae of other collegia. Names should be in Latin and begin with "Collegium". Often they will have one more word, usually an adjective. Consult a Latin expert for help if necessary.
Membership is usually granted by the rector or by the scriba, secretarius or cancellarius. It usually includes collegae and coadiutores, but the second is optional. Remember to say how to expel a member while protecting his rights.
Possible offices normally are: rector (female rectríx, retrícés), scriba (or secretarius/a or cancellarius/a), retiarius/a (webmaster/mistress), rogator/trix (vote counter and returns officer), curator/trix indicialis (list moderator = moderator/trix indicialis and magister/tra indicialis). If you choose not to call your rector "rector", then the Regula should state that the officer of your title is equivalent to a rector under the provisions of the Regula of the SVR.
Voting for officers should be by secret ballot. The Regula should specify the minimum length of elections. Specific mention should also be made of the rights of the aediles under heading VIII.2 of the SVR Regula.
Articles may be inserted to create a council (consilium, concilium) or for the creation of standing committees. They may also be inserted to provide for regional and local branches or chapters of the collegium (see Regula VII.8).
LAW was one of the greatest loves and highest arts of the Romans. Writing a Regula is not a piece of bureaucratic tedium: it is a living expression of Romanitas. And it is practical. It is easy to feel at the beginning of an organisation that you know and can trust your fellow founders, there is great enthusiasm and good will, and it seems like everyone will act forever in accordance with common sense. But as an organisation matures and grows, you will find that you are working with different people, and other personalities from different backgrounds may not give you the benefit of the doubt in your administration of the group, or have the same ideas as you of what common sense really is.
Then your Regula will come into its own and perform its key function of resolving and avoiding disputes. The Regula spells out how power is to be assigned to individuals, and who has the right to speak and act for the group. It upholds people's rights and legitimises power. The clearer your regula is and the fewer ambiguities it has, the fewer will be the disputes that can lead to prolonged ill will and perhaps the destruction of the organisation. It is tested when people disagree, perhaps strongly, and a decision must be made. If the regula clearly states what must be done to resolve the conflict, it is a success. If it is vague and subject to differing interpretations or has holes in it, it is a failure.
Remember that it is desirable to involve every member in the work of the collegium. That may mean in practice many project heads, scribae, and adiutores (aids), so that the collegium is not an unstructured mass, but a functionally organised body in which every individual is doing something concrete.
LANGUAGEIn constitutional documents in English it is customary to use "shall"to indicate that a command or rule is being expressed, not "should" or "will". "Must" is also acceptable in many places. "May" expresses something allowed, not something required. E.G.:
The rector shall be elected by the membership.
The rector shall deliver a report in November.
If a collega shall cause offense repeatedly, he shall be banned.
Elections must be concluded within two weeks. (="shall")
The rector may do so at his discretion.Latin terms:
1 collegium, 2 collegia
1 collega, 2 collegae (male or female)
1 coadiutor, 2 coadiutores (male or female)
1 rector, 2 rectores (male)
1 rectrix, 2 rectrices (female) [The plural is pronounced "re-TREE-case"]The adjective of "collegium" is in English "collegiate" and in Latin "collegialis/-e".
A mediaeval Latin equivalent (more or less) of "collega" is "collegianus/a"
APPLICATION
When your regula is ready, submit it to the Senatus and request to be recognised as a collegium. The Senatus desires to help you more than judge you in most cases, and you can ask individual senatores for advice and assistance before making your formal application.
PRACTICAL POINTSProbably you will have established a mailing list at Topica or Yahoogroups to discuss your plans among yourselves. If so, be sure to make your group unlisted and with restricted membership. This will preserve the secureity of the Sociatas Via Romana and protect you from penetration by hostile elements. It may be that at some point in the future this care can be relaxed, but for now it is important.
Once you are established as a recognised collegium, you may have web space on the SVR web site. For most collegia the web site is of major importance, and organising material for it can yield many worthwhile and interesting projects involving many members. The more material the SVR and its collegia can make available on things Roman at its web site, the more people will come to our site and become interested in membershup. Every collegium should try to do its best to contribute to this collective effort.
ACTIVITIES
In general your activities might include the following:
And other possibilities exist.
- Discussion (random or ordered by set topics or common readings)
- Web-site construction
- Research (learning new things and reporting on them)
- Web publishing (a place to put those research reports and other submissions)
- E-mail publishing
- Teaching (as the Collegium Latinum teaches Latin)
- Practice (of Latin or poetry writing for example)
- Re-enactments and other varieties of meeting off net.
- Offering of services to the general public (teaching, public speakers, information look-up, pastoral services, Roman matrimonial services, guides to Roman ruins...)
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Feedback
If you have used this handbook and have any advice on things left out which might have proven useful, please contact me and tell me about it - together we can make things easier for the next group of founders.
L. Silvanius Florus