Our challenge is to design an INTERNSHIP CULTURE that promotes:

leadership development;
collaboration;
community engagement and service;
the importance of people, clients, users, communities, and society in design decisions;
confidence without arrogance; communication;
constructive critique;
healthy lifestyles;
clear expectations and objectives for professional development;
an environment that respects and promotes diversity;
successful and clear methods of employee assessment;
and innovation in creating alternative professional development methodologies.

Prologue:

In 2002 I had the great privilege of contributing to "The Redesign of Studio Culture: A Report of the AIAS Studio Culture Task Force". This report was both an affirmation and a critique of current practices in design studio education. The report proposed that five values, optimism, respect, sharing, engagement, and innovation, can and should serve as the foundation for necessary change in design studio education. These same five values can and should serve as the foundation for necessary change in internship.

What should architectural internship be?

Internship is and should be the necessary bridge between theory and application. It is the critically important and irreplaceable opportunity to engage in learning by doing. It is the oldest type of architectural education and training, preceding formal education by millennia, and thus far, we have not imagined a means of completely and authentically replicating this experiential learning within the walls of academe'.

Internship is and should be the time of greatest personal and professional growth and development, a time when an adequate safety net allows the emerging professional to stretch and take risks, successfully accomplishing progressively difficult assignments. It should be a time full of "aha!" moments, full of discovery and questioning and affirmation.

The single most important variable in the quality of internship is the culture of the training setting/office/firm and its support for its interns. If it is a training setting that mentors its interns and believes in their futures, it will likely be a good place with a good process in which to learn and intern. If it s a place that promotes the five values of optimism, respect, sharing, engagement, and innovation, it will likely produce good architects.

In 2003, the AIA approved two public policies, based on the five Studio Culture values. These two policies appropriately mirror each other. We can improve internship by practicing these policies:

Studio Culture:

Policy Statement. The AIA supports the recommendations of the December 2002 AIAS Studio Culture Task Force report, The Redesign of Studio Culture, including the belief that architectural design studio is the foundation of professional degree education, such that studio can and should promote the essential values of optimism, respect, collaboration, engagement, and innovation for a more engaged and effective profession.

Explanation. The AIAS Studio Culture Task Force report recognizes the powerful and important pedagogical potential of architectural design studio, and proposes means of maximizing this potential, to result in a more optimistic, respectful, collaborative, engaged and innovative profession. Studio culture should promote: design process as well as product; leadership development, collaboration, community engagement and service, the importance of people, clients, users, communities, and society in design decisions; interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary learning; confidence without arrogance; oral, written, visual and graphic communication; constructive critique; healthy lifestyles; balance between studio and non-studio courses; emphasis on the value of time; an understanding of the ethical, social, political, and economic forces that impact design; clear expectations and objectives for learning; an environment that respects and promotes diversity; successful and clear methods of student assessment; and innovation in creating alternative teaching and learning methodologies.

There is a new condition in the 2005 NAAB conditions: Studio Culture. Accredited degree programs are required to have a written policy on their own studio culture and include it in their architectural program report. These program reports are public documents.

Practice Culture:

Policy Statement. The American Institute of Architects believes that the culture of practice should promote the essential values of optimism, respect, collaboration, engagement, and innovation through management practices that encourage professional development education and recognition of the knowledge and abilities of employees and collaborators.

Explanation. Architecture firms and other practice settings have an obligation to continue to educate their employees and develop the knowledge-base of the profession in service to society. A more optimistic, respectful, collaborative, engaged and innovative profession will result from practice culture that promotes: leadership development; collaboration; community engagement and service; the importance of people, clients, users, communities, and society in design decisions; confidence without arrogance; communication; constructive critique; healthy lifestyles; clear expectations and objectives for professional development; an environment that respects and promotes diversity; successful and clear methods of employee assessment; and innovation in creating alternative professional development methodologies.

Perhaps a means of making architectural internship better would be for every training setting/business/firm that hires architectural interns to have a written policy on their own internship culture, routinely assessed by their own interns, and published for potential new interns to review……………..