The recently introduced IPAL, or Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure, promises to streamline the architectural licensure process for students at 17 universities and colleges by incorporating the Architectural Experience Program into the curriculum. Licensure, which is required by a majority of the fifty states and governing agencies in Canada, usually takes a few years of intense study and rigorous examinations after one's initial formal education is complete to attain. Initiated by NCARB, the in-school program will enable students to also take the ARE. Here's a full transcript of the press release:
Friends,The road to licensure for architects is getting shorter and shorter, thanks to a recent initiative spearheaded by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB).
The Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) provides students the opportunity to complete requirements for licensure while they are still earning their degree. Through the initiative, schools are encouraged to incorporate the Architectural Experience Program (AXP, formerly the Intern Development Program) directly into the curriculum, as well as the opportunity to take the Architect Registration Examination (ARE).
NCARB reports that 21 design programs at 17 schools are already participating in IPAL, integrating education, experience and examination requirements in order to provide a structure for students who wish to pursue licensure early in their careers.
Each school's IPAL participation is unique, with faculty and staff developing individual schedules for review and acceptance by NCARB.
According to Paola Sanguinetti, Ph.D., department Chair of the University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design and Planning -- which has been participating in IPAL since the initiative launched in 2015 -- IPAL is galvanizing the school's partnership with the profession and helping students "excel in their education and profession."
NCARB Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure --
21 accepted programs at 17 schools (six Bachelor of Arch., 15 Master of Arch.)
For more on licensure:
10 Comments
I have been torn on this issue for some time. It seems preposterous from the perspective of an individual to have to go through two separate entities to get a license because of a power struggle that happened between NCARB and Universities in the mid 20th century.
Yet, this reprisal seems like it could turn otherwise exciting and motivational classes as foul and stale as AIA lunch and learn presentations.
My experience was that school was an opportunity to expand my design capabilities, and that I l then earned the minutiae of AIA contract law and door hardware finish specifications on the job.
Programs like these seem like they could balance the focus of school, but I think it is more likely that they will over correct and attempt to leave architects prepared to design really well defined janitor closets when they graduate.
I despise the current system, but I am having the damnedest time believing that this is better.
Two separate entities? - Please explain, not sure I follow.
This is great news. Hopefully it will add a dose of reality to what too often passes for design.
I've always thought most of the schools listed above were bottom of the barrel tech schools.
The architecture profession is such a mess.
Everyone making ups their own rules. Lobbyists in Washington. Seems to be two professions, one builders of strip malls and glass towers and another architects.
Chemex +1000. The profession is indeed a mess, but it starts with the schools. How many isms have they been through in the last 30 years? Everyone wants to be the new thing when all most people want is to live their lives in well built, functional, and attractive settings. It's not that hard to do if one is a little humble and a lot empathetic.
The profession places so many restrictions on architects that it requires 20 years to be design a mini mart. Most of my friends from architecture school found success in other related professions, but developers run construction.
^ no it does not.
3years is plenty of time to build up the experience and pass the exams. People are just lazy.
Personally, I think the integrated path to licensure is a step in the right direction. I definitely think that this should not supersede other available paths that we have currently, however I think that there should be an option to understand all the things that are necessary to practice capital A architecture.
I definitely see this being something similar to a law degree, so that definitely brings up a larger discussion in terms of undergrad vs. grad, etc.; but even so, I definitely could see a system set up where you can come back and focus on design through a masters program.
I think with the way that architecture is set up in the US where a license serves as a guarantee of protection to the public and the "Health, Safety, and Welfare" of those people, this makes complete sense.
I think time in the classroom would be much better spent teaching the political and economic situations that bring about buildings of all types (and various jurisdictions, countries, etc.), rather than building test-prep into the curriculum.
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