Leveraging a Board of Advisors for Continuous Interaction and Improvement: Study of U.S. Military Academy’s Environmental Engineering Major*

An advisory board, often called an Industrial Advisory Board or a Board of Advisors, is generally defined as a group of volunteer external experts that support a program’s activities. Many ABET-accredited engineering programs use advisory boards to help ensure that Program Educational Objectives meet the needs of programs’ constituencies. The limited published research on advisory boards suggests that many boards are underutilized. Advisory boards can support programs through the following three fundamental functions: advising, mentoring, and assessing. This work shows how an advisory board can be leveraged to (1) advise by improving the curriculum and enhancing compliance with ABET criteria; (2) mentor by developing students’abilities to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities; and (3) assess by providing feedback on students’ design and communication skills.