It doesn't surprise me that architecture professors have little to no interest in getting license. You don't have to be an architect to teach in a "professional" program.

Very ironic. Maybe they can use this model to infect Med schools also. Better idea, why don't you teach medical courses too along with your architecture classes and make another 12K per course.

i recently learned that's what a (private) school in my area pays. believe me, i was surprised. i was paid 12k for one course at a state school...10hr weekly commitment. i didn't ask about additional courses because the place had the lowest cost of living i'd ever seen, and i actually wanted the free time. it was a nice life. a colleague who stuck around makes 60-something on tenure track, which is a LOT of money in that area. She routinely travels to reviews at other noteworthy schools in the area, and the school sends her to conferences, etc. pretty frequently .

a former classmate was offered a full-time teaching position out west when he graduated, for 54k, which i thought was a surprising amount of money at the time.

mostly my argument is about standard of living. i felt way more valued and more self-directed in academia than at firms. i chose practice, which i now think was a mistake overall, but i remain committed to making it work. but if i'd known then....

"those who can, do....those who can't.....teach at the U and write 3 books about those who can"

Uh, yeah

"those who can, do....those who can't.....teach at the U and write 3 books about those who can"

They write 3 books about those who can and 3 more about a theory that another that "can't" comes along and writes 3 more disputing it and so the cycle goes and the further away from reality it gets each time.

My favorite is going to a lecture where there are multiple presenters, and the person who can't presents after the person who can. The reaction of the audience and how many kids walk out after the first person presents says it all.

elinor -- On what basis do you think an unlicensed person is qualified to teach architecture in an accredited program?

not to sidetrack the conversation, but now that we have objective data, can we start ranking architecture schools by ARE pass rate?

for example:

- Princeton, Rice, Clemson, Cincinnati and Yale take top honors

- Sci-arc and Pratt have horrible pass rates

- Columbia is below the national average

- UPenn and Harvard are above average, trailing Kent State, Maryland, Texas and UVa

...or an unaccredited one, for that matter?

sectionalhealing --

what is not reported is what percentage of graduates of each of the programs sits for the test, nor how long they take to initiate and complete their testing.

@Matt_A

aren't your school sample sizes (Harvard: 1352 tests, Columbia: 1348 tests, etc.) are statistically large enough to make comparisons?

matt, i totally think so. a license is a legal technicality that varies by state. i don't see why this should impact education. what i would like to see is the education to count for a lot more than it does...to BE the license, as it is in some places in Europe. Then your point would be moot, because any grad would also be a licensee...

and sectional--ain't that a kick--the most "theoretical" school (as it is often described here) takes the prize at exam time. :)

That's all the information we have -- it is the complete data for the years, according to NCARB. It's not sample data, it's the whole shebang.

We don't know how many graduates the schools have, we don't know how long they've been at it. And we don't know what their ARE pass rates are, just the divisional tests. There's no accurate way to know if it means few grads are taking many tests or if many grads are taking few tests. Remember also that the schools class sizes vary considerably, so a school may appear to be performing better than it actually is.

there are a other charts at that google docs page that may interest you. www.tinyurl.com/ConcerningLicensure gets you to them.

So I guess then it's okay to be paying $40-60K a year to learn for the sake of learning, not to become architects.

I could have learned all the theory at home and saved quite some $$$. Why does anyone need to go to "architecture" school?

But couldn't we say:

"From 2004 to 2008, Harvard grads took 1352 ARE exams, with a pass rate of 79.44%. During that same timeframe, University of Texas - Austin grads took 1427 exams with a 81.57% pass rate."

To tell people who didn't go to architecture school that they are incapable of copy-and-pasting specs from manufacturer websites and learning architecture altogether.

NAAB only requires people with B.Archs, as a minimum requirement, to maintain accreditation as instructors.

your pass rates are correct to the decimal places, but they do not correlate to a known number of licenses.

let's say there are 7 tests, each of which has a 70% pass rate.

Some folks might pass all of them on the first time. Some might need to take the same test repeatedly. Not everyone takes all the divisions every year. We don't know how many unique individuals make up the statistics for a given year... So there's good reason to be careful when trying to draw conclusions from the data we have.

...of course there are some schools whose graduate's performance is considerably outside the range of what might be called acceptable.

---

Take a look at the spreadsheets also, to see the ratio of "full-suite passes" to test division attempts. I think this is somewhat more informative in that it tells you how many test divisons were attempted by graduates of each program for every set of seven passes (one of each divisional test).

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B6pgQmW4YXbGZjVlYzc0YzEtYzAwMy00NjcyLTg3MzMtY2ViZTQ2ODQ5ZjRj&sort=name&layout=list&pid=0B6pgQmW4YXbGMjQwMGY5ODYtOTIwZC00YjViLTgxMzEtMWM3YjMzMmRjOTgx&cindex=5

on the summary tab of the worksheet, this is column D. The national median is 19. (grads take 19 divisional tests for every set of seven full-suite passes). That sounds a little different than a 74% pass rate, doesn't it?

There are 23 schools where this ratio exceeds 25 (including 4 who have never had a graduate attempt to take a single test division as of this data report). The school with the lowest ratio in this regard is University of Cincinnatti at 13, followed by Rice, U of Utah, U of Texas at Austin, U of Nebraska and then Roger Williams.

But this says nothing about how long was required by the graduates, or whether there is any correlation between full-suite passes and licenses obtained.

@St. George --

I am thinking of opening a driving school, to teach people how to drive. Should I look for licensed drivers to teach, or should I just try to find people who have passed drivers ed.?

Convoluted argument is convoluted.

But, for the point of argument, licensing requires continuing education of some sort. And there's some issues with professors taking classes within their own universities-- intellectual stagnation, conflicts-of-interest and being prone to corruption.

So, the question comes back to this point: how many licensed practicing architects that are also professors live within 20 miles of two NAAB-accredited universities (one at which they teach, the other where they maintain licensure?)

I am unlicensed and teach at the collegiate level. I teach the same class as licensed Archs who have been professors for as long as they can remember. Their students learn straight from the books. My students learn straight from my professional experience. Which students get the better education? ... I guess it depends if the students want to be profs or practitioners.

Here's another one.

A students teach. The B students work for the C students.

Who exactly is making the argument convoluted? Why don't you answer Matt's question, as I was thinking the exact same thing.

Do you go to driver's ed to teach people who can't drive how to become driver ed teachers, like arch schools do.

Or should it be okay for someone who doesn't have a drivers' license to teach driver's ed?

It's the same damn thing. Or are you dodge the question and come up with another irrelevant comparison.

Also, to push this discussion further. Comparing architecture to driving is a bit of a fallacy. No one requires you to take driver's ed before being tested for the license.

I would accept that argument if NCARB and individual state boards frankly let anyone take the test in order to gain licensure.

This boils down to a He said, she said, they said argument.

If they adopt the European system where M.Arch/D.Arch automatically means being licensed, the industry will complain that it's being watered down by people who aren't 'weathered' enough to be trust.

If they maintain the current system, employers complain that the students aren't adequately educated enough to join their respective workforces.

A licensed professor is only really a plus if they're actually practicing architects who design and build things other than homes. Because, let's face-- unless you're picking out tile and doing renovations, domestic architecture is a steaming pile of brokeass shit.

So... I volley this back to you:

Would you take driving lessons from a licensed driver who hasn't driven a car in 15 years?

@st. george --

not if I was paying the bill for it.

I think an architecture schools response to that question is that their goal as a school is not only to teach someone to pass the exams, so its almost irrelevant to them if their professors are licensed

..ps. driver's ed is mandatory in all the high schools.

which is part of the problem and disconnect between the 2, in my opinion

@marmkid --

that's a fine answer for any unaccredited program. The ONLY reason accreditation was introduced and is pursued is because architects are licensed. Go to Cranbrook, have a blast. They're not accredited and I could care less what they do, who with whom.

Somehow being an architect on this forum has equated to drawing toilet partitions for five years and copying and pasting specs.

Matt, I wish you luck in your pursuit. Academia is a business and I highly doubt it's in their best interest to change anything. The least transparency there is - not publishing the info you seek - the longer they can continue teaching useless shit. It doesn't matter if the shit they learn doesn't transfer outside of the pursuit of becoming an architecture professor.

Yes, I would take driver lessons from a driver or learn arch from architect who hasn't practiced architecture for 15 years given the alternative. Many people do go into teaching as they approach retirement, and that's how it should be. These days a kid has a great thesis, and they invite him back to the school after graduation to teach.

You don't learn without practice, so to think that there is somehow legitimacy in paying 50k for five years to learn the bullshit artsy theory you could pick up in a few books is beyond me. I've sat in a room and debated against four professors on numerous occasions, because at the end of the day, theory without reality is all bullshit that can be argued either way.

Ha, I have a degree from Cranbrook and I'm licensed! I did have a blast while there.

elinor you must have found a sweet university then because I've never even approached that pay scale for teaching. However, my main point was: academia isn't just fluffy pink bunnies, it's a commitment to do academia well. Universities don't just hand out full time tenure track gigs to every recent grad, though often if you're in the right place at the right time you can pick up a class or two.

But that's all beside the point, as is this discussion of whether teachers should be licensed.

MattA - what *is* your point? What are you trying to bring to light or change through this NCARB and ARE study? I'm glad you're taking it on, but what is your main thesis about what you've discovered so far?

thanks, burningman. If students knew that: 2/3 of graduates don't get licensed, and that those who do get licensed take 10 - 12 years to do so after they graduate, they would be in a better position to make an informed decision about their pursuits.

I'm troubled by misleading statements that "internship takes about four years" made by official organs who should know better. The average is about triple that.

If you think you're getting your money's worth at the school you are studying in, great. I'd suggest that every student should ask every professor if they have a license, if they use it, and if not, why not. The answers would be illuminating.

for the record, donna, i never meant to imply that academic work was was fluffy. or that it was easy...it was more challenging than most other work i've done. it was, however, more enjoyable and more rewarding on most levels than working at firms. and it came with more flexibility, autonomy, and respect. all in all, a better situation.

also, most academics would probably be interested in getting licensed, if idp/ncarb didn't make it so impossible for them.

@Donna --

My point is that the system we have in place for education --> internship --> licensure is not functioning as designed or as advertised. The publicly-disclosed statistics provide a partial and misleading image of the outcomes of the system we have instituted. The nature of the profession is changing and not for the better.

With accurate information about the process (were it disclosed) we would then be free to determine if the current system is acceptable, and if so, be honest and forthright with aspiring architects as to the cost they will be required to pay. If the system is failing us, we will have the information we need to reach consensus about the changes necessary, and implement them.

I'm tired of argument from anecdotes, they never reach a conclusion, we just go round and round pointing fingers at each other. If we could look at a map of what is actually happening, we could all sit on the same side of the table and figure out a better design. That's why I've been trying to make graphic representations of the statistics that we have, to see what the patterns are. Because of the opacity maintained by NCARB, a complete picture is impossible to create, accurately.

The schools are each different, perhaps their graduates are performing differently as well. Maybe a school would like to improve -- and perhaps they might want to find out which of the other programs is doing what and use that information in designing their own curriculum. Perhaps the better information, when disseminated, might lead to market pressures that the schools would resist at their peril.

As an architect, I expect truthfulness from the institutions that are guiding our way forward, not a pig in a poke. Willful deception of the next generation of architects when they are in their incubation phase will not produce desirable outcomes. I want to know what the facts are and I think the rest of us are entitled to the same thing.

Seems to me this thread has gotten ridiculously far off the intended track. Nevertheless, it has brought into sharp relief the ongoing disconnect between what the academy teaches and what the profession needs.

If the schools have so litttle concen about what it takes to practice successfully in the commercial world, then one could make a connection between that attitude and what one observer above so eloquently describes as "domestic architecture is a steaming pile of brokeass shit".

My main point here being, professional schools presumably should be teaching knowledge and skills that have actual relevance to those graduates who don't necessarily intend to spend their careers teaching. If the bulk of graduates only can produce "a steaming pile of brokeass shit" then do you think something might be wrong with the educational system?

If medical schools only taught interesting theoretical remedies and then all of the patients treated by their graduates died, then perhaps the schools' doctrine might not be relevant to the patients' needs.

i would argue the reverse, that the fact that

'the bulk of graduates only can produce "a steaming pile of brokeass shit'

may be the reason schools don't see the point of teaching to practice.

That all sounds great, Matt. Meant seriously. The structure in place now *is* frustrating and confusing and seems in many ways misleading.

So what do you think is the way to present this information to a broader audience, and who is your audience? High school students thinking about architecture school? College students thinking about an MArch? NCARB or the state boards that use NCARB? Accredited programs?

Also, I totally agree with the statement that the profession is changing and not for the better. So how do you see better knowledge of licensing procedures and effects changing that? And what would be, to your mind, a positive outcome of improvement?

I'm not expecting an answer to all this, just thinking aloud about how intractable and deeply rooted the current issues are. I can't even begin to figure out how to address it.

i guess i started this tangent. apologies. my point was that there are paths to realizing one's goals as architects that fall outside the strict domain of professional practice, and that do not have licensure as a prerequisite. you can hardly blame some people for wanting to take this path. it shouldn't be viewed as some sort of failure.

elinor -- if that's your POV, then what's the point of obtaining an architectural education?

my 13:07 post was in response to elinor's 13:03 post - not her 13:07 post.

@Donna -- Have you read the Boyer Report? My appeal for transparency is written for the same audience. It got a lot of lip service and then everyone doubled down on continuing what they were already doing.

I am convinced that IDP, as a model, is fundamentally flawed. No office was ever opened because the principals wanted to be great mentors. Internship is given lip service, but there is no accountability on the part of those who are supposed to provide it, nor is there a funding mechanism other than pay your interns with dirt and maggots. It has relieved the schools of any sense that there is a need for eduction to be relevant to practice -- witness elinor. And it has metastasized to the point where we have rolling clocks and six-month rules and an enormous bureaucracy overseeing something that is supposed to occur in three years taking ten or twelve -- that is to say, unlicensed individuals are getting IDP credit for about one day in four that they work. It's indefensible, and it leads to alienation and abandonment of the profession. The first ones to do this are the best and the brightest, they can identify the components in a value equation and work the sums.

It's an unhealthy situation and it's time that the profession honestly looked in the mirror and put the bottle down.

NY state allows experience in lieu of an accredited degree (one of the few). In this case they require 12 years of experience.

If those with accredited degrees are also taking 12 years (on average -- and they are) to get their license, I'd love to have someone tell me how the accredited programs are making a positive contribution to the outcome? Why not just say everyone takes 12 years and be done with it?

"domestic architecture is a steaming pile of brokeass shit"

What I meant by that is that many people on this board, in pro-practice books and even the casual journal article mention that domestic [residential] architecture is often a near fruitless endeavor.

Now, if you're like some people posting in this thread, who deal in excellently-designed kitchens, bathrooms and renovations... that's an entirely different monster than new home construction.

But building houses?

Firstly, you don't really have to be licensed in this.

Secondly, building an structurally-unsound house is way, way harder than building a structurally sound house.

If you're so incompetent that you can't even make a single-story not kill its inhabitants... you should probably go back to middle school.

But domestic architecture doesn't usually deal in complexities involving fireproofing, sprinklering, occupancy loads, egress, ventilation and airflow, sanitation et cetera.

If I'm paying someone to teach me about architecture, I'd rather prefer it be from someone who at least does strip malls and not some blow hard who nails cedar shakers and copper shingles to a CMU box and calls it "design."

Matt - that's a tremendously articulate statement of the problem.

@Matt_A
"that's a fine answer for any unaccredited program. The ONLY reason accreditation was introduced and is pursued is because architects are licensed. Go to Cranbrook, have a blast. They're not accredited and I could care less what they do, who with whom. "

so you would prefer stricter ciriculum requirements for schools to become accredited then?

I am all for schools having more prep courses for what the students should expect once they start working, but I am not sure it will ever actually become a focus anywhere near the level of the design studio. To be honest, I am not really sure it should be. I think something more helpful would be for there to be more of a co-op requirement, so students arent graduating with 3 weeks of work experience one summer. You can eliminate a lot of the grunt classes that the students mostly blow off anyway to work on their studio projects and have a requirement to gain some work experience. Unless someone gave a class specifically as a prep course for a specific ARE exam, I am not sure if they really ever can match actual work experience. So why pretend?
And if a student wants to only work in academia and has no real interest in ever obtaining a license, have an alternate degree that does not require work experience.
There are a million holes with those ideas as well though.
I think its a fine line for schools to walk before they are basically just giving ARE prep courses as required classes (which i actually wish my school would have done). I am dating myself a while back, but i remember there being a sustainable design course that ended with all the students taking the LEED exam. Looking back, i would have saved myself a big headache if i had just taken that class.


Are you sure the system is really failing us though? I think a telling statistic would be how many of these unlicensed architects actually desire to get a license?


Things are much more specialized these days, and you can make a very fine living without ever obtaining your license. I personally feel you will be limiting yourself in your career, but that is just my opinion for my own career path. I could very easily see it being different for others

@elinor --

If I open an ice cream store and sell marijuana out the back door, and my monthly take from selling weed is $10,000 and my monthly take from ice cream is $5,000, I want to ask you: is this an ice cream store with a sideline of selling dope, or am I a drug dealer with a cover story of selling ice cream?

The schools are graduating 7,500 a year. There are about 3,000 new licenses granted every year, and not all of these go to graduates of the schools. This means that 2/3 or so of the graduates are not becoming licensed. ever.

So the schools are hardly in jeopardy of being accused of providing an education that is too confining and trade oriented.

Personally, it is my view that if fewer than half of a program's graduates are getting licensed, it's not an architecture program that has the 'benefit' of humanities education, it is a humanities program with an architecture sideline.

Matt, can I get in with you on the ice cream store dealio? ;-)

I agree with quizzical: your post at 13:10 about the essentially unworkable IDP structure is excellent.

@Donna -- we'll take that part of the conversation off-line, eh?

I'm naive enough to think that pressing our institutions for accountability will bring positive results, maybe not perfection, but certainly improvements. So if you agree, please spread the word up and down the line to folks you know who share your passion for getting it right. Please write to AIA leadership and the members of your state licensing board and ask them to bring NCARB to account.

NCARB has a new Executive Director and perhaps this is the best opportunity in a long time to bring the needed changes and transparency to the Council.

@Matt_A About a third of the faculty in the US is licensed (in some jurisdiction, not necessarily where they teach). There are about 3000 total faculty in all the schools, so about 1000 of these are architects. The others have not demonstrated minimal competence sufficient to practice architecture unsupervised.

not all architecture school faculty teach courses that deal specifically with the technical/legal aspects of the practice of architecture - and if we're making comparisons to doctors and lawyers, not all med-school faculty are MDs either. do you really need to be a licensed doctor to teach biochemistry or cell biology? A lot of these core courses in med schools are taught by researchers who are either getting a PhD (not a medical license) or are post-docs - and yet they seem to still graduate capable professionals.

same in architecture - does holding a license make you any more competent at teaching arch history or 3D representation? Personally, I'd hope any means and methods classes were taught by licensed professionals, but foundation studios? basic graphic representation? why should this matter?

@toasteroven --

I think the licensure ratio of the faculty it as a way of measuring respect for practice, and the profession. And commitment.

Schools are (were) the place where accumulated knowledge is passed from generation to generation. They seem now to be subsidized playtime, run by unserious people hiding from the vicissitudes of life beyond the sheltering walls of the acadamy.

You're free to interpret the numbers in any way you like. But I venture to guess that the faculty of medical schools is more than half MDs and the faculty of Law schools have mostly passed the bar. The same cannot be said of architecture programs, sadly. I would be ashamed to put myself forward to teach a subject I had not demonstrated minimal competence to perform unsupervised. I'd be embarrassed, and I wouldn't want anyone to know. It would make me feel like a poseur and a fraud every time I cashed my paycheck. I'd be like a general who didn't know how to shoot a rifle, sad and pathetic.

...of course, I'm just speaking for myself....

don't get me wrong - I think there are a lot of issues with IDP and the licensure process, but this idea that the lack of licensed professionals in academia is somehow a cause of this problem a non-starter for me.

do I think schools should do more to prepare students for practice? absolutely.

one good way to do that is to interact with a few practitioners every now and then...