Creating a Program Advisory Board

Engaging Students as Stakeholders through a Student Advisory Board

“…Kane and Jisha (2004) praise the benefits of such advisory boards for enhancing sport management student engagement and industry involvement. Hicks et al (2011) also found that the formation of advisory boards can be seen as a move to add both credibility and value to academic programs. Lawrence et al (2018) outlined the various advantages of engagement activities for sport management program advisory boards.…”

“…This concept has gained considerable traction in higher education as industry professionals have long served as a means for colleges, universities and academic units to gain support and guidance on preparing graduates for entry into the workforce (e.g., Genheimer & Shehab, 2009;Nagai & Nehls, 2014;Rapert, 2017;Rose & Stiefer, 2013;Söderlund, Spartz, & Weber, 2017;Zahra, Newey, &Shaver, 2011). The academic discipline of sport management has also extensivelyutilized this key stakeholder group(practitioners) to form advisory boards for the purpose of curriculum development, internship and job placement and other strategic and programmatic matters (Hicks, Hancher-Rauch, VanSickle, & Satterblom, 2011;Kane & Jisha, 2004;Lawerence et al, 2018;Milman, 2017). This notion has been further extended to other areas of the sport industry that utilize stakeholder involvement in decision making processessuch asthe inclusion of high performance athletes in national governing body planning (Geeraert, Alm, & Groll, 2013;Thibault, Kihl, & Babiak, 2010), the use of student athletes in the formation of intercollegiate athletic policy (Kihl & Schull, 2019), fan participation in team decision making (Uhrich, 2020) and local organizing committee involvement in the governance of major sporting events (Parent, 2016).…”

“…TheSM-SAB would work together with academic faculty and administration in a similar capacity aswould an industry advisory board. Evidence for the benefits of such a program is drawn from both the higher education (Astin, 1984;Krause & Coates, 2008;Kuh, 2009) and sport management (Hicks et al, 2011;Jisha & Kane, 2004) literature.The formalization of student-stakeholders comprising aSM-SAB is a departure from traditional student major clubs and other extracurricular activities that serve to engage students (Brown & Johnson, 2018;Kornspan & Duve, 2013). Suggestions for creating and utilizing aSM-SABare outlined in this paper as well as the potential outcomes related to further engaging students in their learning process.…”