Advisory Boards: Friend or Foe?

By:  Allison Kreifels, National Consultant Team

Hopefully this title caught your attention because you realize how strange that notion even is.  If you've never had an advisory board before you might be afraid it's a foe, but a well-planned and organized advisory board is always your friend.  So how do you make sure your advisory board is well-planned and organized?  Here's some tips:

• Have a clearly outlined agenda for your meetings.  Make sure you know what you are going to discuss at each meeting and stick to the agenda.  Sharing it with the members of your advisory committee in advance is also helpful so they can think about items on the agenda before they arrive.
• Limit meeting length and frequency.  Be as respectful of their time as you would expect others to be of yours.  While there's no magic number to meetings, a good general guideline is 60-90 minutes 2-4 times per year. 
• Thank them for their service in public ways.  Consider writing their boss a thank-you note, recognize them in the paper, give them a small (FCCLA themed) gift, or serve refreshments at the meeting. 
• Include a wide variety of people on your advisory board.  Parents, students, administrators, counselors, other career and technical educators in your school, board of education members, business leaders, career field specialists, and post-secondary educators all make excellent members of an advisory board.  Also, be sure to look at the gender makeup of your group.
• Take suggestions.  While not everything may work, let those who suggest ideas know that their suggestions are still valued and that you will look into it.  Not discounting ideas makes people feel more comfortable with suggesting other things.  Remember, it only takes one great idea to solve a problem. 
• Let them know the strengths and weaknesses of the department.  Don't be afraid to talk about where your department is strong but also where it needs to see improvement.  Advisory boards can provide valuable insight and sometimes even resources to helping grow those strengths as well as improving areas of weakness.

So take a chance and get started today on the path to a successful advisory board.