• April 2006
• August 2006

Posted April 2006

NCARB Board Takes an Affirmative Position on ARE Timing
In February, NCARB announced their conclusion that there is no evidence of increased risk to the health, safety and welfare of the public if a candidate with an accredited professional degree and who is actively engaged in IDP is permitted to begin to start taking divisions of the ARE. The NCARB Board is working toward an affirmative vote at their annual meeting in June to change NCARB model law to allow interns to take the ARE concurrent with their IDP (with some stipulations).

To read the full statement from NCARB, please visit www.ncarb.org/NewsClips/feb06aretiming.html.

IDP Coordinating Committee Conducts Comprehensive Evaluation of IDP Resources
Three IDP Coordinating Committee task forces were created last Fall to conduct independent evaluations of priority program elements: The IDP Mentor, the IDP Core Competencies, and the NCARB National Office operations. During its April 28-29 meeting, the Coordinating Committee will be considering specific recommendations for strengthening each element.

The IDP Mentor Task Force, chaired by Ron Battaglia, FAIA, was charged with conducting a survey of interns, supervisors and mentors to assess the effectiveness of the intern/supervisor/mentor relationship. Dr. Susan G. Weinberger, President of the Mentor Consulting Group and a nationally-recognized expert in the design, development and implementation of mentoring programs for public and private sector clients, was retained to lead this investigation.

An electronic survey was disseminated to 6,932 interns and 28,320 architects in late February. Follow-up telephone interviews were also conducted. The Mentor Consulting Group will present its findings and recommendations to the IDP Coordinating Committee.

The IDP Core Competencies Task Force, chaired by Stephen Dent, AIA, was charged was assessing the extent to which practice competencies related to each of the 16 IDP Training Areas were acquired during IDP and were retained following completion of the Program. The Task Force has engaged the services of Thomson Prometric to conduct the study (Dr. Linda Montgomery and Nancy Thomas are lead investigators). Thomson Prometric has significant expertise in competency assessment. A survey instrument has been developed and is currently being pilot-tested. The Core Competencies Survey will be disseminated to a randomly-selected population of former IDP participants, and preliminary results will be reported to the IDP Coordinating Committee at their Fall meeting.

In addition to the above study, an NCARB Task Force has completed a validation study of the IDP Core Competencies. This study investigated the extent to which the Core Competencies relate to both the Architect Registration Examination Test Specifications and the 2001 NCARB Practice Analysis tasks (practice-related skills identified as important to entry-level practice as a registered architect). The IDP Coordinating Committee will review the findings of this study, along with recommended modifications to the IDP Core Competencies, at its April meeting.

The NCARB National Office Task Force, chaired by Andy Prescott, AIA, was charged with (1) assessing the quality and efficiency of IDP resources, (2) evaluating NCARB operations related to the processing of IDP Council Records and related services to interns, and (3) identifying, organizing and training the IDP Member Board Liaisons. As part of their work, the group spent a day at the NCARB office meeting with key staff, reviewing Record processing procedures and assessing NCARB's work volume and response times against established performance objectives. An IDP Resources Survey was disseminated to Program participants in January. The Task Force will issue a final report, with recommendations, to the IDP Coordinating Committee at its April meeting.

For regularly updated information, visit the IDPCC's new web sites at www.aia.org/idp_idpcc and www.ncarb.org/idp/idpcc_index.html.

ACSA Hosts a Workshop on Internship at their Annual Meeting
On April 2, 2006 at the 94th ACSA Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Wendy Ornelas, FAIA, moderated a workshop on internship. This session reported on the outcomes of the 2005 Internship Conference, Designing Tomorrow's Architects, and generated discussion of specific issues coming out of the conference, including developing alternative paths for completing IDP, creating teaching firms or "practice academies," and other strategies for encouraging mentorship. The panelists in this workshop were RK Stewart, FAIA, AIA First Vice President/President-elect; William C. Miller, FAIA, former dean at the University of Utah and former NAAB Board member; Victor Sidy, AIA, dean at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture; and Donald Goo, FAIA, director of the internship program at the University of Hawaii.

For more information, visit www.aia.org/ep_teachingfirms.

Posted August 2006

Delegates at NCARB Annual Meeting Move Closer to ARE Concurrent with IDP

Delegates to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards
(NCARB) Annual Meeting on June 25 passed a resolution to accept, in principle, a proposed policy which would allow emerging professionals to take certain designated divisions of the Architect Registration Examination concurrent with their participation in the Intern Development Program. The resolution passed by a vote of 45-6.

The resolution "...requests the Board to prepare implementation details of such policy and bring forward at the 2007 Annual Meeting and Conference a resolution implementing such policy..."

For more information, visit the NCARB Web site at www.ncarb.org/idp/idpfaq.html#ques7.

AIA Awards Practice Academy Grants to Three Schools of Architecture

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) announces the recipient of a new grant program to develop Practice Academy pilot programs. The grant program totals $90,000 and each of the selected schools of architecture will receive a total of $30,000 over the next three years to support the development of their proposed program.

The selected programs are from the Boston Architectural College, Iowa State University, and the University of Cincinnati. “The expectation is high for the three selected programs as the future of the practice academy programs will be determined by the success of these pilot programs. We look forward to working with them over the next three years to help them achieve excellent results,” said Andrew Pressman, FAIA, Practice Academy advisory committee member.

For more information on the schools and their proposed programs, visit www.aia.org/ep_practiceacademy.

Podcasts of the 2005 Internship Conference

Now, you can listen to excerpts of the 2005 Internship Conference at home, ata work, or on the road. Selected presentations, discussions, and dialouge have been produced in conjunction with ArchitectureRadio to provide a sense of the spirit of the conference.

For more information, click on any of the major sections of this Web site--Innovating, Empowering, Envisioning, or Connecting--or visit the ArchitectureRadio web site at www.architecture-radio.org/learn/collections/20050922-DESIGNING.