MBA students at the Johnson School expand their skillsets both in and out of the classroom. One of their focuses is on their leadership development. Johnson Board Fellows is an organization that pairs second-year MBA students with Tompkins County nonprofit organizations and allows students to practice and grow their leadership while also giving back to their community.

MBA students join their organization’s board as non-voting members and use their leadership skills to complete a project for the organization throughout the year. The program goals are to allow students to learn about nonprofit governance, lower the bar for future nonprofit board service by giving students the skills and experience they will need for future board roles, and to give students an opportunity to connect with the community and use their talents for the organizations’ needs. 

Jackie Barrett’s Engaged Faculty Fellowship project is focused on adding structure, educational components and additional support to Johnson Board Fellows so that both participants and community partners have more robust and meaningful experiences. This includes designing a series of educational workshops for the Board Fellows, injecting critical reflection into the Board Fellow experience and scoping what kind of community engagement role the Leadership Programs office should take in this program.

This enhanced programming will allow Board Fellows to be better board members, increase their impact during their partnership with their community organization, see ways they can positively impact their communities in the future and identify the ways in which they have grown during this experience. This additional support may also allow the program to increase in scale, allowing more students and community partners to be involved, to improve the experience of the community partners during their engagement and to create a cohort experience for the community partners while involved in the program.