Board Game Advisors
The Tabletop Advantage
What We Do
Modern-day forces disconnecting our students from their studies, sense of self, and engagement with others. What follows is a serious challenge to their academic, personal, and professional development. Student retention is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as students suffer from a feeling of separation from their college community. To combat these growing trends, we utilize modern tabletop gaming to provide a meaningful medium through which students can feel empowered and reconnect with their education, self, and community.
Tabletop games offer a unique opportunity to engage students and introduce new ideas in an accessible, multimodal in-person format. Faculty, counselors, and student service professionals can utilize the unique advantage of tabletop games in numerous educational applications.
Board Game Advisors can educate and train you on how to best use board games, card games, and roleplaying games to benefit student engagement and learning. Whether it is a first-year writing course exploring the building blocks of rhetoric with board games; an experiential education program that fosters career choice; or a tabletop RPG that creates a safe sandbox for students to explore potentially difficult content; we will consult, design, and implement an innovative tabletop experience that levels up your students’ development.
About Board Game Advisors
We are educators, practitioners, and student service professionals from diverse backgrounds with experience in developing innovative experiential education solutions to meet the evolving needs of our students. Our approach is to collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to understand the learning outcomes being sought and then provide an experiential educational experience that evolves with student needs.
To meet these goals, we engage students with one of the most fundamental forces of our human development; play. Play has always been our greatest teacher and community builder, allowing us to understand in a manner that feels welcoming and safe while providing agency and direction to all involved. Modern tabletop gaming has proven an invaluable medium through which students can explore and understand new concepts. To this end, we have dedicated more than ten years of work in the tabletop industry to the study and application of tabletop in higher education. Together, our team of industry experts is ready to bring the entire collegiate community to the tabletop.
Services
Our speakers, curriculum, and program development are supported by peer-reviewed research and a professional network of industry experts with cutting-edge applications of tabletop gaming.
Meet the
Meeples
Meeples, or my-people, is our diverse group of designers, publishers, and media that are seeking to educate, and inspire the next generation in the industry. This is our guest speaker and consultation service for academics, departments, and student organizations seeking to learn more about gaming and the tabletop industry and how it can serve the needs of your community. We are excited to engage with fellow professionals and students to discuss this rapidly growing hobby and the stories we share at the tabletop.
- This meeting can be held online or in person depending on the parties and the level of engagement request.
The Starting Space
Presentation
Our introductory program for higher education professionals and students provides a detailed presentation on the history of modern board gaming, current research in the field, and examples of what professionals are accomplishing through the use of tabletop gaming. After the presentation, you will better understand how tabletop gaming can improve student engagement and learning and how you can integrate it into your department’s work with students.
- This presentation is held online and is approximately two hours long.
The Leader
Board Meeting
Our in-person program allows faculty, staff, and student leaders to experience firsthand how tabletop gaming can empower student education and services. We tailor our presentation to focus on a particular department of area of focus, such as: academic department, student services, counseling center, professional development, leadership, personal growth, or student clubs and teams’ needs. Following the program and Q&A, we provide interactive demonstrations of tabletop games providing innovative solutions to many of the challenges students face every day. We demonstrate and provide a package of games and resources to support ongoing engagement. Everything you need to facilitate tabletop gaming engagement on your own.
- This meeting is held on campus and is approximately a full day.
Collegiate
Convention
Our full-service convention program provides everything needed to host a tabletop convention for all participating classes, departments, and student organizations. We provide all the necessary training and development for all participating parties, and all the particular tabletop games and resources that serve the individual needs and outcomes of all involved. This mini-convention can be tailored to any division, academic department, or student/alum population. Attendees have the opportunity to meet with tabletop industry professionals specific to their community to learn about the creation, production, and practical applications of games in areas of higher education. This is a fantastic opportunity to provide experiential education that spotlights the campus and brings everyone together.
- Our staff provide for an in-person day of education and training, followed by a full second day for the gaming convention.