The professional accreditation of architecture programs: academics' perceptions

Histories of the rise of the architectural profession tend to note the often contentious relationship that exists between the academy and the profession (Freeland 1971, Kostof 1977, Gutman 1989, Cuff 1991, Clarke 1994, Duffey and Hutton 1998). However, relatively few of these works mention the formal mechanisms that exist to mediate between the profession and the academy; these include accreditation processes, competency statements and registration examinations (Boyer and Mitgang 1996, Woods 1999). It is widely known that such mechanisms exist in most countries to control the standard of people entering a profession, but they are rarely the topic of independent research and evaluation. In 2007, as part of the Carrick international benchmarking study of architecture schools, architecture academics across Oceania were surveyed by the authors about their opinion on a range of matters including professional accreditation. 57% of all academics responded to this survey and a series of follow-up interviews and focus groups took place in the 20 schools of architecture to gain a deeper level of understanding of the issues raised in the survey. The present chapter records the results of a short series of likert scale questions in the survey about accreditation, and then provides a detailed discussion of the views of academics in different schools. Opinions varied greatly across Australia and New Zealand and there were significant state variations within Australia as well. Overall, the responses build up a rich and compelling picture of the positive and negative dimensions of the professional accreditation of architecture schools