Academia is meeting hell.
I am not joking when I write that I have attended meetings to talk about meeting.
Administrators want to meet with everyone. Faculty want to meet to complain about meetings with administrators. Students want to meet to get information you already gave them.
I even have difficulty getting to meetings because people are in my office trying to meet without scheduling a meeting.
The worst meeting I attend is the weekly student editorial board meeting. This is the time for the student editors to make necessary decisions about student media content and operations.
It is unproductive and lasts about twice as long as necessary. I almost always leave the meeting feeling frustrated and with a list of things that still aren’t done or decided.
The irony is that, as the faculty adviser, I’m in charge of the meeting!
That’s right, although I do not vote on decisions, I’m the person responsible for keeping the meeting progressing and on task, but myself or an editor hijacks it weekly.
This meeting madness must stop!
It’s time to rein in ed board meeting.
Here are 11 things I am publicly vowing to do to make ed board meetings more professional and productive:
1. Create an agenda.
I send the editors an e-mail agenda call each Wednesday morning. I ask them to send me their agenda items as soon as they get the message. I typically draft the agenda on Thursday afternoon. Sometimes editors are still sending me agenda items Friday morning or right before the meeting. This means I end up creating multiple versions of the agenda.
The current agenda call comes too late and without accountability. Instead, I am going to send the agenda call on Tuesday morning, requiring the editors to submit their items by 8 a.m. Thursday morning for inclusion. This will give the editors a deadline for item submission. I won’t feel obligated to include items that aren’t submitted on time.
2. Distribute materials in advance.
Editors come to meeting without any knowledge of what one another plans to discuss because they do not get the agenda in advance. They also introduce materials like new policies or design items during the meeting. This results in a lot of Q&A or people reading things to one another during the meeting. This type of information should be discussed and understood in advance.
I will send the completed agenda and any submitted supplementary materials to all editors on Thursday evening. This will allow them to be prepared for decision-making and necessary discussion. It also will provide an opportunity for them to have individual discussions beforehand if necessary. This, of course, means that myself and the editors must submit and review this information in advance.
3. Stay on schedule.
I am terrible about starting editorial board meeting late. This means the students are sitting around waiting on me (usually to finish another meeting). As the meetings ramble on, they run into other things the students have scheduled, like class. This just shouldn’t happen. I will start ed board meetings on time (regardless of who is present) and end them within an hour at the longest. No meeting should last more than an hour.
4. Be prepared.
I will bring items sent in advance, my planner, pens and paper at minimum to every meeting. I will encourage the student editors to do the same.
5. Maintain focus.
I will maintain my own meeting focus and require focus of the student editors. This means that we will follow the agenda and not spend time discussing decisions they’ve already made or unrelated topics.
6. Unplug
We already do this, but I think we must continue to avoid use of cell phones or computers during meeting. No texting or ringing, just like in class.
7. No eating!
I’m the worst about eating my lunch in ed board meeting, but this just makes the meeting longer. Think about it: Eating takes a certain amount of time, and you shouldn’t talk while doing it. You’re automatically extending the length of your meeting by doing this. We should eat before or after the meeting.
8. No socializing
Meetings are for business, not social time. We should not treat meetings like “get togethers.” If we don’t have business items to discuss, we can cancel the meeting and go have a soda instead.
9. Avoid one-on-one
We put a lot of items on the agenda that really are just one of us asking another member of the ed board to do something. This should be communicated outside of meeting.
10. Take minutes
I will begin to take minutes at each meeting. This should help us stay on task and keep items the board votes on from falling through the cracks. The minutes will include:
- Who attended
- A brief summary of the agenda
- Time, date and location of the meeting
- Actions approved
- Tasks assigned (including who is completing the task and by when)
11. Follow up
I will send a follow-up as soon as possible after the meeting. I will attach the minutes and include these details in the message:
- Actions approved at the meeting
- Tasks assigned (including who is completing the task and by when)
- Time, date and place of the next meeting
- Any known discussion items
I attend a lot of frustrating meetings. The one I host should not be one of them.
Help me, help you!
What actions do you take to streamline meetings? What else should I do?
