The focus has been on alternatives to traditional education. But now we are looking to widen that horizon by asking: What assessment tools are being used to qualify people for licensure, and what’s the measuring stick? We feel that there’s enough data out there and enough existing or emerging assessment tools that, if we are really serious in promoting inclusion and opportunities to practice, we need to take a fresh look at everything. We’ve made some adjustments to existing NCARB programs to promote accessibility and equity, such as the licensure exam: We have an accommodation for people for whom English is a second language, with 20% more time. We’ve eliminated exam items where there’s a higher failure rate for people of color and women. We continue to look for unconscious bias in how we frame our questions and the perspective that the questions come from, making sure that pronouns are gender-neutral and the context for items including case studies don’t evidence white, middle-class bias. We’ve diversified the pool of architects that help us write the exam questions. We have committees to look at other impediments such as time limits and other administrative policies that might keep people out of the system. But we’re still looking at higher education as the typical entry point into the profession.

All 55 NCARB jurisdictions recognize a NAAB [National Architectural Accrediting Board]–accredited degree as qualifying toward licensure. But as we have looked at our data research, we’ve seen that this negatively impacts some licensure candidates. The cost of higher education continues to rise, and many interested students simply cannot afford a five- or six-year architectural education, based on where they are socioeconomically. As we all know, there’s a bias in this country that impacts people’s ability to pay for school, or work while they’re in school, and the ability to get jobs after school. In talking with licensure candidates and other groups such as the National Organization of Minority Architects [NOMA], there are pressures that fall upon women and people of color that disincentivize them from staying in architecture school. This certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have great architecture programs out there, or that most candidates won’t choose to go to architecture school. NCARB is not saying that we should abandon that option. But we’re looking at the people who are left behind because of the impediments of education cost and the ability to be accepted. They can demonstrate competence, but they might not be the right fit for higher education, or it’s not a choice for them in terms of their socioeconomic background. We also hear from firm practitioners that newer graduates aren’t as prepared for work as they had hoped. They find that students who went to community college programs or four-year pre-professional architecture degree programs are as ready or more so than their counterparts from B.Arch or M.Arch programs. 

There seems to be more of an emphasis on practical skills that fit the workplace, as opposed to the more intellectual exercises that NAAB-accredited professional degree programs layer in. The hiring practitioner is most interested in what practical skills does this employee bring with them to the workplace. Which skills make them valuable? Our goal with Pathways to Practice—and note that it’s plural, not singular—is to recognize all combinations of qualifying experiences, including education, in getting to licensure. In opening up additional pathways, we look at this as an “and,” not an “or.”

Yes. Currently, if you don’t hold a NAAB-accredited degree but you got a license some other way in a state that allows for that, when you come to us for NCARB certification we require twice the experience that NCARB’s Architectural Experience Program [AXP] requires. And if you don’t have a pre-professional architecture degree, there is a series of additional hurdles to clear for certification. The non-NAAB-accredited path is likely to take longer and demand more in documentation.

Yes. Wyoming is the latest state that just recently allowed this pathway to initial licensure without education, and we’re aware of three or four others considering this. But we do not have complete consistency between those 18 jurisdictions. One of the reasons NCARB was created in 1919 was to create consistency across state boundaries. As more states start thinking about this, we’re encouraging them to consider a consistent approach to multiple paths. Our intent is to write model language that states can adopt. Interestingly, one of the flashpoints that propelled this was the murder of George Floyd, after which there were lots of conversations around the country about impediments that might encompass systemic racism. After that event, a subsequent AIA [American Institute of Architects] annual conference included a proposal from the Maryland delegation to eliminate the requirement of a degree for licensure as a means of addressing impediments that could carry an unintended bias. They subsequently pulled that proposal, but a number of states were intrigued. There’s been an ongoing conversation at the state licensing-board level and the local AIA level about other states joining these 18, and we have worked with some of these—Virginia, Minnesota, and one or two others. The states want to be careful that there is still rigor in the licensure process. And there will be concerns expressed by the academic community that this is somehow going to undermine the value and status of architectural education. So, to answer your question: the number has been growing.

It’s been pretty stable. NAAB-accredited programs typically graduate 6,000 students annually. Of those, about half have already started recording practice experience. We typically see about 3,500 individuals complete the licensure path every year, so from that we find that about 55% of the graduates from NAAB-accredited programs go on to become licensed. We also look at attrition rates—people who start down the licensure path and don’t finish. Why is that? We’ve found that there’s a higher percentage of women and people of color in that category. That caused us to commission the joint study with NOMA, “Baseline on Belonging,” to look at the underlying factors of a higher attrition rate for under-represented groups. That study indicated that it’s about cost and culture: the cost of school and other economic factors that affect people pre- and post-graduation, and culture from K–12 through higher education into firm culture. So we created free preparation for the licensure exam because we learned that some people were spending upwards of $10,000 for test-prep materials. Now we’re seeing higher pass rates: people of color who take our prep exams have a 17% higher probability of passing the Architectural Registration Exam.

That program continues to grow. IPAL is in about 20% of all NAAB-accredited schools. A little over a decade ago we were changing the intern experience program from the Intern Development Program (IDP) to AXP, and we eliminated some hours. We started to see a trendline of students starting to work while in school and getting experience credit. The education and experience elements of qualifying for licensure were beginning to overlap. We wondered: Is there a way to decrease the total “time to licensure”—typically, 13 years—and integrate education, experience, and the licensing exam, to make them more concurrent than sequential? We started working with schools to adjust curriculum sequences so students could work while in school and take parts of the licensing exam. Even if that added a year, there’s long-term savings by getting it all done before you graduate. We weren’t going to tell schools what to teach, but asked them to help place students in jobs and allow them time to work. What we learned is that very few students tried to take the exam before they graduated, and that half the students were finishing AXP before they graduated. Many schools struggled to place students in jobs. However, the overwhelming majority of IPAL students are taking the exam within two years of graduation. So the overarching goal of expediting the path to licensure has been successful. Now we want to work more with schools to help place students in jobs and to redirect our emphasis to taking our practice exams. As part of refreshing IPAL, we also want to start working with community colleges and looking at four-year programs.

That assumes that ethics are being emphasized in school. And in the same interview it was suggested that schools are not teaching ethics as well as they should. I’m not sure there’s a basis for the assumption that the academy is the best place, or the only place, or the most likely place, where there’s a sustained focus on ethics. Are there any data that support that assumption?

I think the issue is neutral. It depends as much on the value of the educator or the practitioner in a firm place on what they think is important. In a firm, I think if there’s an ethical dilemma it’s going to land pretty squarely on the employee who sees what it does to the business and the reputation of the firm. In light of the Me Too movement, we’ve seen what’s happened to several high-profile practitioners and how their inappropriate behavior has impacted their business and the reputation of the firm. That’s something that has reverberated through the profession. I don’t think anyone has a leg up on being “Best in Show” when it comes to ethics training.

I don’t know. I think sometimes we over-compare medicine, law, and architecture. It’s true that in each of those professions if you do something wrong you might injure someone. But they’re not really the same, apples to apples. I learned recently that Oregon created a “non-bar exam” path to licensure. This is happening in other fields as well. There’s a national organization called The Paper Ceiling that promotes the idea that experience in lieu of education can be just as qualifying. There’s societal interest today in rethinking traditional approaches to qualification. For architects, this really isn’t new. The jurisdictions that allow alternative pathways to licensure have been doing this for decades. And in 49 jurisdictions, licensure can be obtained through reciprocal accommodation. So it’s already mainstreamed now; NCARB is just trying to move it to initial licensure so that we are doing everything we can to embrace diversity in the profession and opportunity not just based on race or gender, but also socioeconomic status.

NCARB promotes the idea of a study, and we think NAAB should do it. But they haven’t. If they aren’t interested in doing this, it’s not going to get any traction. We’ve talked to academics over the years who have told us—off the record, I guess—that it wouldn’t be that hard to fulfill NAAB’s accreditation requirements in four years. The question is whether the 150-credit-hour requirement that is part of the NAAB’s Conditions for Accreditation is justified or arbitrary. We’re not suggesting removing the M.Arch, which is a fine option. We’re just not sure that a five- to six-year education path should be mandatory for accreditation. It’s at least worth a feasibility study: Could a four-year NAAB-accredited program occur, and what would it look like? Our interest is in increasing opportunity. 

We’re very interested in adding more practice-focused conditions for accreditation and for NAAB to explore efficiencies in how it conducts accreditation assessments. The NAAB demonstrated such efficiencies through the lockdown but has indicated a desire to go back to its pre-pandemic approach and layer in additional steps that add cost to the accreditation process. We aren’t hearing much interest in questioning whether the current approach is even the right way to accredit a professional program anymore, Unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything progressive, new, or creative coming from conversations about how the NAAB could reform the accreditation process.

We’ve heard reports that licensed instructors make up less than 25% of tenured faculty, cumulatively, across all NAAB-accredited programs. We understand that there’s been a longstanding debate regarding whether education serves as preparation to practice versus education functioning as a forum for promoting “design thinking.” We know that there are programs which encourage both approaches very effectively, and others that celebrate the latter over the former. In the past we’ve floated ideas about having accreditation include a requirement for a certain percent of full-time, tenured faculty to be licensed architects; such a proposition has been rebutted with the argument that the path to tenure doesn’t really leave a lot of room for pursuing licensure, that such a requirement would be an inappropriate infringement on academic freedom, and that instruction in design thinking does not necessitate a background as a licensed practitioner. It is our understanding that as a solution, many licensed instructors tend to be adjuncts, not full-time faculty. In a way, if this is suggesting that licensed practice isn’t an essential precursor for architectural instruction, then perhaps this supports the idea that architectural instruction is perhaps not an essential precursor for licensed practice. 

NCARB believes that through multiple pathways, including those with and without degrees from accredited programs and extending to other forms of higher education, one can acquire knowledge and demonstrate competence to qualify for licensed practice. It may take longer to achieve licensure without traditional approaches to education, but it’s something that could and should be an option for initial licensure in all jurisdictions. It’s been proven to work in places like California and New York, who crank out more architects than any other state. In addition to the 18 states who already allow this for initial licensure, another 31 allow this via reciprocal licensure. But even in those states, it’s not a large number in proportion to licensees with degrees from accredited programs! Casting this option as a “threat” and dismissing this option through the implication that one is less of an architect isn’t supported by any assessment of the thousands of architects who have taken this path. Such a conclusion is certainly disrespectful of their work in obtaining a license and of the work delivered to their clients. We argue that given the reality of multiple pathways in 49 jurisdictions, one can’t talk about opportunity and inclusion but claim that there is only one viable pathway to licensed practice.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.