DEPARTMENTAL ADVISORY BOARD CHARTER

Purpose

The ECS departmental Advisory Board is formed to provide input from discipline experts representing a broad range of career avenues. The Board is intended to provide advice and suggestions to the department to continue its positive growth. While the ultimate decision to make changes in policy and practice rests with the faculty and the upper administration, these decision will be strongly influenced by the Advisory Board’s input and guidance from their professional perspective.

Main Functions of the Board

a. Provide industry views to assist in timely curriculum updates

b. Assist in job placement connections with the industry for ECS graduates

c. Help the department efforts in student and faculty recruiting

d. Develop strategies for effective fund-raising

e. Support collection of ABET-required feedback from discipline stakeholders

f. Foster strong relationship among key departmental stakeholders

Selection of Board Members

The department chair will obtain nominations from diverse sources and make recommendations to the dean. With dean’s concurrence, the department chair will be responsible for the formal invitation of new members.

Composition of the Board

The Board membership is open to qualified individuals with strong Christian convictions and a deep commitment to the future of the ECS department. APU alumni, especially CS/ECS alumni, as well as department benefactors and employers of our students in significant numbers, are strongly preferred. While engineering and computer science professionals will constitute a major segment of the Board, our liberal arts and sciences emphasis calls for members from a broader range of disciplines and career experiences.

Board Officers

The Board shall elect a Chair and a Vice-Chair. The chair has the responsibility to preside over Board meetings, to lead and manage its activities, and to form sub-committees for specific tasks. The department chair will ex-officio be a non-voting member of the Board and will serve as its Secretary. In this capacity, the department chair will assist the Board Chair in all aspects of the Board’s work, including in particular the issuance of meeting notices as directed by the Board Chair as well as the maintenance of meeting minutes and other records.

ECS faculty members are not to serve as Board members. However, their attendance in Board meetings is encouraged, except when the Board desires a closed-room meeting.

Schedule of Meetings

The Board will meet at least once each Fall and Spring semesters, on APU campus. Additional meetings (and their venues) are at the discretion of the Board, and usually minimized considering time and travel constraints of the members. While physical presence is strongly emphasized, the Board will develop a policy for occasional remote participation via teleconferencing.

Meeting Agenda

a. The Board secretary (department chair) is responsible for drafting a meeting agenda in consultation with the Board Chair, and for circulating it in advance.

b. Each meeting will include the following:

1. An update on the state of the department

2. Review of enrollment, retention, and graduation numbers

3. Review of recruitment, internships, and job placements

4. Evaluation, discussion, and comments on ABET issues.

5. Other items

c. The dean or the associate dean will be invited to address the Board briefly.

Alternatively the chair may meet with the dean after the meeting and provide a feedback.

Meeting Participation

a. Substitutes for a Board member are not allowed.

b. Students will not be allowed to attend the meeting (other than for planned student

meeting periods).

c. The meeting will be open to all ECS departmental faculty and staff unless a closed session is requested by the Board Chair. However, the board can invite a non- member for participation in the closed session at its discretion.