The face of ASURA
The President is the face of the Association relative to the University and is the contact point for many inquiries and/or questions from both within and outside of ASURA. The President need not make all the decisions relative to these inquiries but is expected to decide the processes that will be used to address the issues and direct the inquiries and/or questions to the appropriate person or group (e.g., Business Manager, Board, etc.).
One other task associated with being the face of the Association is an expectation that the President writes a short article for each of the three Prime Times. There is no defined content for these articles. See Prime Times calendar to find out when the articles are due to the Prime Times editor.
Signature authority
The President is required to sign a variety of documents during the year. Some of the documents require an original some an electronic signature. In most cases when a signature is required the Business Manager will contact the President. The chair of the Scholarship Committee contacts the President to initiate the letters to the scholarship recipient and Scholarship Office. The following table lists some of these required signatures along with information on the type of signature and when the signature is typically needed.
Read about using digital signatures
Table of Required Document Signatures for ASURA President
| Document |
Signature Type |
When Signed |
| Key Authorization form |
Original |
May |
| Gift in Kind form (book sale) |
Original |
May |
| Membership letters |
Electronic |
May, July, September |
| Funds Transfer form |
Original |
May |
| Credit Card Request form |
Original |
May |
| Scholarship letter to recipient |
Electronic |
May / June |
| Scholarship letter to Scholarship Office |
Original |
May / June |
| Scholarship Award authorization |
Original |
July / August |
Executive Committee meetings
The President is responsible for calling and chairing all meetings of the Executive Committee. The past few years these meetings have been held an hour before the Board of Directors meetings.
It is often helpful to review the Operations Checklist during this meeting, to ensure that necessary tasks have been assigned and are being taken care of.
Board of Directors meetings
The Board of Directors meets the second Tuesday of the month from September through March and in May. There is usually no Board meeting in April because the Annual Meeting is in that month. The President may also call special (extra) meetings of the Board as needed to handle business in a timely way. See Board Meeting Procedures where the general meeting process is described.
The duties in this area are:
- Preparing for a Zoom meeting, if applicable.
Two weeks before the meeting the President or designee sets up the Zoom meeting. Once the meeting has been saved, the meeting address (link) is sent to the Secretary.
- Preparing the meeting agenda.
The Secretary generally sends you a copy of the "standard" agenda asking for any changes and additions. The current Agenda may be available in the BoardMeeting folder in Wild Apricot (see accessing Wild Apricot Files). While an agenda template is available, in practice the agenda is generally a modified version of the previous month’s agenda. The agenda file is updated by the Secretary while working with the President.
- Presiding at the meeting using Robert’s Rules of Order.
Engage Vice President
The only specific duties specified in the Bylaws for the Vice President are to succeed the President automatically and in the case of temporary absence or disability of the President, to perform all the duties of the President. And the only other duty is to help the newly elected Board members become part of the Board. This has generally meant the Vice President has little to do during their term as Vice President.
To address this situation, the President may assign the Vice President tasks to keep them engaged and give them a better understanding of how ASURA operates, making the transition from Vice President to President easier.
What sort of tasks are assigned changes from President to President and depend on what the President needs. Some example tasks are:
- Chair the Events Committee.
- Work with all the committee chairs and liaisons to make sure the material on the Volunteer Help website are current and correct.
- Be the lead ASURA contact for the Tri-university meeting
Financial transactions
The ASURA Bylaws give signature authority to four officers: President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Immediate Past President. The President tells the Business Manager the order of authority (i.e., who is the first, second, etc. on the authority list) to use during their presidency. There is a steady stream of requests for approval throughout the year.
The ASU Foundation is the bank for ASURA and all financial transactions pass through the Foundation. There are two types of financial transactions that have to be approved: credit card expenditures (after the fact) and direct payments from the Foundation (before the fact). The Business Manger keeps the ASURA books and all transactions are approved by the Treasurer or a backup approver, usually the President or Vice President, using the Workday app (see Treasurer Duties for information on logging into Workday).
Prepare the Annual Report
It is best if the Annual Report can be completed before June 1st; It must be completed by June 30th. Sometime in mid-April a request should be sent to all the liaisons and committee chairs requesting material for the Annual Report. Once all the material has been collected the President (or delegate) merges the material into a single document which is sent to the ASURA Mailing Operations Manager for printing. The number of copies should be limited to the number required for distribution to ASU administration, maybe one for the Library achieves and perhaps a couple more. A digital version (a PDF file) should also be sent to the ASURA Websites Committee for posting on the ASURA website.
Tri-university meeting
Over the years, the three retiree associations for ASU, UofA, and NAU have meet to share ideas and discuss issues germane to their associations. ASURA has found these meeting useful. For information on how the meetings are organized and run see the Tri-University meetings page. As of December 2025 these meeting have not been held for several years.
Appointing chairs and identifying liaisons
One of the first tasks for the President is “staffing” the various ASURA positions: the committee chairs and the Ex-Officio members.
Chairs & Liaisons
The timing is not fixed but it is advantageous to have the committee chairs and liaisons in place by the May Board Meeting. Once the names have been established any new names are sent to:
- the ASURA webmaster to update the webpages
- the ASURA Secretary to update the Wild Apricot Committee Chairs and Liaisons Group.
Ex-Officio Members
The ASURA Bylaws (Article IV.B) state: “To facilitate communication between ASURA and ASU organizations (as determined by the Board), representatives from those organizations will serve on the Board as ex-officio members in a non-voting, advisory capacity. Ex-officio members have automatic Honorary Member status in the ASURA for the duration of their service.”
The President does not pick Ex-Officio members but rather contacts the appropriate ASU organization and requests a name. The Ex-Officio members are more likely to be new in the fall and so confirmation generally waits until late August. Any new names are sent to:
- the Membership Committee to add them to the database as Honorary members. Note: This is not done if the person is already an ASURA member,
- the ASURA webmaster to update the
- the ASURA Secretary to update the Wild Apricot Ex-Officio Members Group.
Annual Review of appointed contacts
The annual review is a task done by the Executive Committee but the President has the responsibility of getting the information necessary to the Executive Committee to do the review.
Member recognition
ASURA is an all-volunteer association and it is the President's job to continually think of ways to recognize the contributions of the members. This can range from a simple thank you given during an event up to a small gift or luncheon. Some of the recognitions are on-going traditions, while others are one-time events. Examples of past recognitions:
- Creation of a plaque with the names and dates of service for all the Past Presidents (an ongoing tradition)
- A Gavel Plaque given to the outgoing Presidents
- A lunch for Past Presidents
- A lunch for Dick Murra attended by past presidents
- A staff appreciation luncheon. This was held for several years, with attendees being sometimes the office staff and other times also the committee chairs or Executive Committee members
ASURA websites
ASURA's websites contain information that needs to be current and correct. The President has responsibility of reviewing the following pages at least once:
