As I reflect on this past year, I think about the many engagements I have had with our members at NCARB meetings, during their service as Member Board Members or committee volunteers, or in a conference hallway, at a restaurant, on the phone, or riding on an event bus. Engagement is so very important to us as a community and as an organization.

 

Committed to Engagement

 

So that is where I would like to start—let us reflect on where we left off a year ago when I first began my role as NCARB president. We were debating 10 resolutions; we were working on programmatic improvements at multiple levels; and, we were seeking ways to assure that no matter what perspective our Member Boards have, NCARB wants to listen, grow, and improve in the arena of building community.

It is important to know that changes under consideration are not decided in a vacuum or without considerable study over multiple years. This is especially critical for those of you who are new to participating in NCARB activities: we believe that deliberation, consensus, and debate best position us for effective implementation.

Therefore, I committed to redoubling efforts to engage with you in a way that ties us closer together. We worked on this through previewing our Board discussions and empowering our regional directors as effective liaisons. Our efforts extended to emphasizing the member perspective in ways big and small. These efforts included facilitating strategic discussions at the 2016 Member Board Chairs & Executives Summit in Columbus, OH, and supporting regional-led presentations at the 2017 Regional Summit in Jersey City, NJ.

 

A Shared Strategy

 

We continued the concept of a shared strategic charge for all committees. We convened our committee chairs for a new on-boarding workshop to emphasize a common vision. Additionally, we started two new groups of volunteers:

• A Model Law Task Force to take a multi-year look at the purpose, format, and usefulness of NCARB Model Law
• A Resiliency Work Group to explore how issues of resilience and sustainability could be manifested within our regulatory toolkit

Our committees, subcommittees, task forces, and work groups did a terrific job this year. This is not an empty compliment; it is a reflection of the quality of the leadership we have in our volunteer pool. They delivered on critical charges that will move us forward in an inclusive and deliberative fashion as we continue to improve our ability to support Member Boards and the public they are charged to protect. Here are some highlights:

• Ethics: Chaired by FY15 NCARB President Dale McKinney, FAIA, NCARB, and in its second year, the Ethics Task Force has recommended changes to NCARB’s Code of Professional Conduct. It also recommended several considerations for next year’s committees relative to how ethics might have a stronger presence within our programs and policies.
• Model law: The Model Law Task Force, chaired by FY16 NCARB President Dennis S. Ward, FAIA, NCARB, has focused upon model language used by the Federation of Associations
  of Regulatory Boards (FARB) as an organizing concept to revisit our Model Law content
  and format.
• Resilience: The Resiliency Work Group, chaired by former Delaware Board member John Mateyko, AIA, has issued an inspiring statement of purpose; it recommended actions for NCARB programs which are motivational, aspirational, and worthy of future focus by NCARB committees and staff.
• Education: The Education Committee has recommended a redesign of the NCARB Award. This redesign would offer a single purse award to deserving academic or other programs including research, and it would also underwrite new outreach efforts to the professional practice instructor community.
• Continuing education: The Continuing Education Committee has added more online monographs to the portfolio of free Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW) continuing education for Certificate holders, and once again co-reviewed HSW courses offered at the AIA Conference on Architecture.
• Certification alternatives: The new group composing the Certification Alternative Review Team (CART) conducted its first training as it readied to review applicants for certification who are licensed but have no architecture-related education. This virtual successor to the Broadly Experience Architect (BEA) Committee will ensure that, following the changes approved at the 2016 Annual Business Meeting, rigor will be applied to the submittal of experience as an alternative for education deficiencies.
• Examination: The Examination Committee and the Architect Registration Examination® (ARE®) subcommittees laid the foundation for the new ARE 5.0 cut scores, established a schedule for supporting the simultaneous offering of ARE 4.0 and 5.0, and maintained a focus on the future state of examination.
• Experience: The Experience Committee responded to the interest in developing a stronger regimen for Architectural Experience Program™ (AXP™) supervisors by exploring options for training and developing more focused guidance.

 

Meanwhile, NCARB staff contributed greatly to my efforts and the focus of our
programs, including:

• Supporting Think Tank activities to review the role of supervisors from the licensure candidate perspective
• Organizing a new Test Prep Provider Program
• Conducting research to support the Board’s blue-sky discussions
• Developing outreach materials for my presentations at collateral and other meetings
• Moving the ball forward by implementing changes that our members and the Board approved through their votes

 

A Year of Change

 

Let us reflect for a moment on how our ability to effectively engage has yielded great results in the past 12 months:

• Last June, one week after the Annual Business Meeting, we launched the AXP.

• We overhauled the program into six areas representing phases of practice as identified by our practice analysis, anticipating the use of these same areas later in the year for the new ARE 5.0.
• The AXP also introduced an alternative path to complete the experience requirement known as the AXP Portfolio. This alternative involves the mapping of an electronic portfolio of work—including work older than five years—older than five years to the AXP tasks, which is then validated by a supervisor.

• In November 2016, we launched ARE 5.0. By April we had worked as a Board in concert with the ARE Cut Score Task Force and Examination Committee to systematically establish cut scores for all six new divisions.
• In January 2017, we activated our Mutual Recognition Arrangement with Australia and New Zealand. This follows last year’s affirmative vote and the obtaining of the necessary minimum 28 Member Board approvals by the December 31 deadline.
• In February, we launched the first piece of the successor to the BEA Program, known as two times AXP, for those licensees who have a four-year architecture-related degree. This change was overwhelmingly approved by the membership last year and eliminates the subjective committee review and its $5,000 fee.
• In May, we launched the second piece of the successor to the BEA Program, known as the Certificate Portfolio, for those licensees with unrelated or no education. Our new CART virtual review of an electronic portfolio will map work to the areas of education deficiency while also eliminating the old $5,000 committee review fee.
• The third year of the Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) initiative saw the addition of more participants to a new total of 17 schools and 21 programs, with a number of participants prepared to launch their first cohort. And, as we announced in Boston, five new programs will be joining the initiative in 2017.
• More of our Member Boards are now sharing data with NCARB. With this information we can continue to strengthen our ability to populate the national disciplinary database, assess trends and metrics that can lead to future strategic choices, and act on your behalf as national thought leaders with the media, government, and other groups assessing architectural practice and the value of licensure.

 

Inspired by the Next Generation

 

This past year I had the great honor and opportunity to represent NCARB to external groups and to interested parties beyond North America. Last summer I was part of a panel of collateral leaders addressing the challenges of international practice at an Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Conference in Santiago, Chile; I also joined my fellow collateral leaders on panels at our 2016 Licensing Advisors Summit in Chicago, at the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) Forum in Boston, and the ACSA Annual Meeting in Detroit.

Some of the most rewarding experiences of the year came from talking with and about the next generation of architects. Whether it was talking with architecture students at Ohio State, visiting my alma mater, Rice University, to explore how schools prepare students for licensure, or having dinner conversations with our Think Tank, I came away inspired and challenged!

 

A Stronger Voice for Equity

 

As the first woman to serve as NCARB president in 20 years, I also had many requests to engage with female licensure candidates and comment on the ongoing issues related to diversity and equity in our profession. Our NCARB by the Numbers data has helped the greater community focus on areas needing a stronger voice for equity and role models. I have been inspired by the new conversation around equity, as a successor to diversity, initiated in San Francisco by Rosa Sheng, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, and elevated by a commission organized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Rosa was featured at our 2017 Licensing Advisors Summit, and I hope many of you were able to there to hear her refreshing and inclusive approach to how we all must—and can—own a more inclusive future for our profession.

 

Focusing on the Work Ahead

 

We have also tried to move beyond old conversations and unreachable solutions regarding academic accreditation. It is critical that we come into a new realization of the necessity for modernizing accreditation—like we have done with NCARB programs and services—as we nurture and utilize this essential element in the path to licensure.

But still, it all comes back to engagement. It has been such an unforgettable privilege to work with the Board of Directors as we seek consensus on shared vision and goals. Through lots of honest discussion and open-minded attitudes, improved relationships with our fellow collateral leaders have allowed us as a group to step up from a parochial approach to seeking win-win solutions. The frank feedback from many of our Member Board Members and Member Board Executives has continued to sharpen our approach and keep us accountable. And the “no task too small” attitude of our staff and the wonderful office culture they celebrate has made it a joy to visit the Washington, DC, office and a relief to know they’ve had my back.

So as I reflect on all we have done, I must leave with a reflection on what is still to come. I want to challenge each of you to lift your focus toward what is good for us as a community. We all, as dedicated volunteers, must stay off the sidelines.

President John F. Kennedy told us that “time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”

• For you as Member Board Members, think about how protecting the public differs from protecting the practice. Look for ways to keep your jurisdiction best positioned to deliver value, justify a reasonable approach to regulation, and educate your elected leaders on why your service matters.
• For you as Member Board Executives, take a new MBE under your wing as we see a huge infusion of new employees, consolidation of services, budget tensions, and aging state support systems that challenge you. Don't be reluctant to suggest new ways for NCARB to help you.
• For you as public members, your participation underscores our main focus on protecting the public, assures that we prioritize the right things, and keeps us away from concerns of industry bias. Please help us bring your peers into the conversation.
• For you as collateral leaders, know that while NCARB supports a regulatory mission based on public protection, we also believe in our strategic goals of facilitating licensure and fostering collaboration. Our actions in recent years speak for who we are today, and we need your help in moving the conversation beyond outdated grievances and unproductive suspicions.
• For you as NCARB staff, continue to celebrate a partnership with our volunteers, continue to provide us with data, best practice information, focus group and survey responses, and the superior tools that have made NCARB the envy of many other regulatory federations.

I look forward to remaining part of the conversation as we explore the future of architectural regulation, as we focus on tools to help practitioners effectively supervise AXP candidates, as we add value and benefit to certification, and as we stay committed to a deeper engagement with all of you.