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The Formation of an advisory baord

I am the new director of a career school which does not have an advisory board. I have been with the organization for a period of four weeks and in that time I have discovered that some of the administrative staff have a wealth of valuable information. It is mine intention to ask some of these staff members to serve on the advisory board. What they possess is invaluable.
I have also been meeting with individuals involved in allied services; individuals who have a lot to offer; who epitomize all the characteristics of great advisory board members; I will also seek to involve them in working with the school.
Any thoughts on this matter - - - what else would you advice?

Alessandra,

Given the assessment you've made on the “legacy” information resident at your school, I suggest you consider establishing two separate, and possibly overlapping advisory boards, one internal and one external. This would provide you with an opportunity to gain perspectives and knowledge from your associates while still gaining the value of external and objective input from outside the organization. Secondly, you will gain from the experience of setting up an external advisory board and be fulfilling your accreditation requirements.

Please provide your reaction.

R. Roehrich

My feeling is that since you have administrative staff with a wealth of valuable information your internal meetings and forums should enable them to contribute towards a common purpose. The size of the advisory board is important and needs to reflect the size of the schools population and with this in mind by having more external individuals on the advisory board you will have a different perspective which can be very helpful.

Suhas,

I agree with your statement on the size of the board in relation to the school's population. Another suggestion to stimulate different perspectives is, along with your agenda; send a well thought out question for the board members to consider in advance of the meeting. After you've covered your main agenda at the meeting, pose the question to the collective board and you'll be surprised at the diversity of comments you'll get on most questions; assuming your board has diverse backgrounds and experiences.

For example, ask how the board members to be prepared to provide new or unique ideas for marketing a new program in the region you serve. Listen to their advice, don't be judgmental, and at the end express to them how much it means to you to have them actively involved in helping set the direction for the school. In your follow-up notes, be sure to recognize the contribution, and if accepted, detail how you're going to put it in place.

R. Roehrich

I am having difficulty meeting the Accrediting body's requirements of having five external board members per program. Our school has a population of 250 students in 7 different programs. So having 35 board members seems excessive. Any advise?

Kathleen,

This is a dilemma that many schools face with accreditation standards that are applied more generically to career colleges. One approach you might consider is identifying external board members who could serve more than one program. This isn't easy, but depending on your program emphasis, e.g. allied health, you might be able to combine memberships and have one group that serves several programs. You'll have to review your accreditation guidelines carefully, but it can be done.

Once you've identified the external advisory board members, you can structure your meetings to have a generic first section that applies to all programs, e.g. general education requirements, and then get more specific to each program. If you're creative, you can meet the accreditation requirements and still achieve your advisory board's goals.

I hope others respond to your posting and provide their ideas.

R. Roehrich

Do you have more than one person representing each program? If so, that may be a way to cut down on the number of members required. For our advisory board if we have only one representative, we are then allowed to have only 3 board members per program. This is per our accrediting body. We have program supervisors for each program that oversees the faculty, students, ensuring policies/regulations are followed, etc. that are our representatives.

Another suggestion, like Dr. Roehrich mentioned, is to have crossover board members. For example we have an architectural engineer whom serves on our drafting program's board, but also on our business program's board, as she runs her own engineering firm.

I absolutely agree with you--especially when relating to small career college. Before starting the accreditation process we thought we were golden. We thought we had all of our bases covered just within the confines of our school. Our management team was comprised of industry experts who had owned a school previously and our faculty and staff was also comprised of industry veterans. We thought we had all of the information and knowledge necessary to run a successful school. Then, as we went through the accreditation process we were highly commended on our industry knowledge, but we were reminded that knowledge and experience relating specifically to the education field is equally important. For this reason, when we selected our board members we were very careful to recruit a few members that had experience in higher education. We’ve really found that an external board can help “fill in the gaps”.

Did staff members work for you? my experience even with loads of experience and knowledge advise was bias.

I have a question about participation of internal board members. When the regulation for accreditation states that advisory council include members from faculty and administrative staff, shroud they always be non-voting ex-officio members, or should they be given voting powers in this particular case?

Ignacio,
In order to maintain the integrity of your advisory board, it is best to have your faculty and administration as ex-officio members. By establishing the ex-officio role for your faculty and administrators, your external board members will have a greater sense of value through their contributions and feel their votes on issues will be reflective of their opinions and not biased or side-railed by internal participants. Providing them with "exclusive" voting privileges will also enhance their commitment to the board and institution.
Dr. Robert Roehrich

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