National Associates Committee

I started looking at graduate schools during my last year at university. It is a great opportunity to further your skills and explore another aspect of your profession or even to switch professions. I have friends who worked a few years and went back to school and others who are now thinking about it. Working has allowed them to see what new skills they want to acquire and how they want to use more education to further their careers.

Since moving from a suburb of a small city in Virginia to a large metropolitan area of San Francisco, I realize that location also greatly determines the felt necessity for having a graduate degree. In my former location, few architects had a graduate degree. On the job learning was seen as the way to advance. In San Francisco, it is assumed most professionals have a graduate degree. In a discussion with a planning student, I was told he felt a Masters was necessary to get beyond being a plan checker.

With the many directions one can take in architecture, any number of graduate degrees could be applicable. There is the standard M. Arch but many schools offer it in combination with degrees in planning, urban design, or business. One could also go for something in a related field like art, graphics, or environmental design. If you are in graduate school or thinking about heading down the path, tell us what you are studying and your motivated you to go that route?

By Chris Bowling, Assoc. AIA

Chris is the 2006-07 Community Director of the National Associates Committee. He is currently an ARE candidate in Louisville, Kentucky. 

When I completed my undergraduate studies in architecture I grabbed my things, my fiancé, and moved out to California. I was thrilled about my new adventures and life after school. The last thing on my mind was joining the AIA, because I had no idea what it did other than take my money. As a recent graduate and Intern Architect, obviously I didn’t have much money. Four years lapsed and I went to Graduate School.

While in Graduate School I realized that architects did not reach out to the community as much as they should. Once I graduated, I joined a local firm in Louisville, KY and at that time the local component president for AIA was a co-worker. I shared my thoughts about out reach and he asked for my involvement in the AIA. I learned that the AIA is a great platform to pursue interests that benefit the architectural profession whether it is internal or external. The president created a new committee that I was to head titled Architects in Education where I took national best practice models and created two curricula for teaching kids about architecture. Through this committee I lead a group of seasoned registered architects and other Associate AIA members. I wrote and was awarded a grant from the American Architectural Foundation for a program for a local High School. Without the support, both via funds and people, it would have been extremely hard to create an outreach program to educate the public on architecture.

Joining the AIA allowed me to pursue an interest with support and opened up many other avenues for civic involvement. It also allowed me to exhibit and progress my leadership skills, which is difficult in a firm as an Intern Architect. My desire to continue my involvement lead me to become the Regional Associate Director for the Ohio Valley Region and be apart of the National Associates Committee. Through my involvement I have had opportunities to participate and network that I would have not had if I never got involved. My leadership and presentation skills have greatly improved since my involvement and I have a better understanding of the profession and its future.

One of the issues that I plan on pursuing for my region is to improve the Associates’ knowledge of the profession and to empower them. A Regional Associate Summit is being planned that will allow for networking, peer mentoring, and presentation of information that will empower the Associates.

So what can the AIA do for you? It can give you experience that you would have a hard time attaining. It can give you a voice in the direction of the profession. It can advocate for legislation for architects. It can give you a vast network of people that share a common goal. It can give you a central location of knowledge about the industry, buildings, business management, trends, and other items. It can give you tools to improve your abilities. It can give you many things, but what the AIA can provide is contingent upon what its members put into it.

It is up to you.

By Murrye Bernard, Editor
Murrye is a freelance writer and intern architect in New York City. 

It’s hard to believe it has been an entire year since I began my position as editor of AssociateNews.  At the time I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, only that I wanted to be involved somehow.  Well, that, and I got a kick out of telling people that I was the editor of a national publication.  But like any position, it demanded commitment, which grew as we added new features – from the expanded layout with images to the new blog. What started as a one person job has grown into a job for three (I’m not kidding – we selected three people to take over next year).   And then, somewhere in the middle of all of this… life happened.

I went from being an intern in Little Rock, Arkansas to selling my house, my car, and packing up for New York City.  I also left the traditional realm of internship to explore writing further through freelance work and writing proposals for a firm.  Yet, through editing this newsletter, I have actually been more in touch than ever with the profession of architecture and the issues emerging professionals face.   I’ve made it a point to share a little of myself through my ‘letters from the editor.’ My intention was to inspire you to, in turn, share your personal struggles and victories with me and other emerging professionals. By far, the most rewarding part of being editor was reading your feedback. 

I especially enjoyed the responses to my first issue about why you wanted to become an architect. As trite as it may sound, I think it really does help to read that others are going through the same things – struggles and victories alike.  Though my term at AssociateNews has come to an end, I will become the Director of Forward, the other (quarterly) publication of the NAC.  The three new editors – Bonnie Sen, editor-in-chief; Christina Noble, news editor; and Peter Antinoro, web editor – will take over AssociateNews beginning with the next issue in January.  I look forward to the new directions they will take this newsletter and hope you will continue to provide your invaluable feedback.   

Thanks for reading me.

by Candi L. Adams, Assoc. AIA

Shortly before my term began as AIA Arkansas Associate Director, an Associate asked me when Arkansas was going to allow interns to take the ARE alongside IDP.  Apparently our neighbor Texas has allowed this for quite some time, and some folks would just as soon hop the state line for a license, as wait a few more years to take their tests.  I decided this was a good question to forward to our state registration board.

I started reading everything I could find about ARE+IDP, including publications by all the acronyms of architecture and the former website www.ArchVoices.org. I soon decided it was information overload for one person, and sent a general email asking for interns to join a task force on the issue.  Our group of five interns researched and met weekly for almost two months to discuss what we had found. We talked with licensed counterparts to get their opinions on the tests, “back in their days” and we called registration boards across the country to obtain the number of new licenses issued each year.  We quickly realized that the ratio of new licenses in concurrent states overwhelmed those of non-concurrent states.  We e-polled 680 interns, architects, and B.Arch. students across the state with the yes-or-no question:  Do you believe intern architects should be eligible for the ARE upon graduation with the accredited degree, while compiling IDP Training Units as defined by NCARB?  To this, we received nearly 200 responses, over half from licensed architects, with 77% overall in favor. 

Once we had organized our research, we created a Word document with explanations of everything we had found in support of ARE+IDP.  This poor thing was edited and emailed within our group at least a dozen times, and explained our support in the form of seven documented points in nine pages.  Perhaps the most important of these explained the effectiveness of an architect’s education where degree, internship, and registration are a continuous learning process with licensure as the end objective.  An intern would not only gain the necessary experience to practice architecture, but would apply and test that knowledge along the way.   

Eventually, we realized that concurrency was not only a highly debated issue, but a complicated one as well. The process to change a policy like this is inconsistent across the nation, and for reciprocal licenses to be maintained, there has to be some continuity.  Since we had already decided Arkansas should begin this process, we scheduled ourselves on the May agenda for the Arkansas State Board of Architects meeting to share our research from intern’s perspectives.  The Board was very receptive to our discussion, and at the NCARB annual meeting in June, they endorsed a model law change to allow concurrency.

In a sense, our hard work paid off, and the whole experience opened my eyes to a new expectation from our profession.  An architect’s position in society is public by nature, and the ability to advocate our position is practically our responsibility.  Sometimes taking the first step is a matter of trying to answer a simple question.