by John Cary, Assoc. AIA, and Casius Pealer

The AIA Membership Services team has confirmed that 693 newly licensed architects joined the AIA in 2003, which is about 28 percent of the candidates that the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards reported had successfully gained licensure that year. Earlier this year, however, the AIA calculated a new-join rate more than double that number. Our research revealed the error, and we would like to share lessons we learned in the process of comparing AIA records to those of individual state licensing boards.

Causes for the discrepancy were many, we learned subsequently. The AIA only last year started keeping records on the rate of newly licensed architects who immediately joined the AIA. What initially caught our attention, however, was the 1,525 figure the AIA published and celebrated at the AIA Convention in Chicago, which sounded great, but incredibly high. It would have meant that more than 60 percent of the 2,470 newly licensed architects reported by NCARB for that year had immediately joined the AIA. Our sole intention in double-checking the data and writing this article is to help the AIA gather accurate data.

Cross-checking databases
Most state licensing boards have Web sites in which the public can search for information about individual licensees, often including the date of initial licensure. We picked one state (Missouri) and started searching for names on the AIA list of 1,525. The first name came back as having been licensed since 1987; the second, since 1996. We checked a representative sample from various states, but AIA staff remained unconvinced. So, we eventually searched for more than 1,000 individual names and generated a detailed spreadsheet of the results.

After seeing this spreadsheet, AIA staff methodically reviewed each of the 1,525 member files to understand the discrepancies. They concluded that the primary problem was that AIA membership information prior to 2004 did not necessarily include an accurate initial license date. Some applicants submitted photocopies from a state other than that of their initial licensure. And, if the license photocopy provided did not have an initial licensure date, the data entry system defaulted to the processing date, (in this case, 2003). Other problems cited included differing terminology used by state boards and also that some Associate members “upgrade” their membership eligibility without notifying the AIA. The AIA determined that the correct number of newly licensed members in 2003 was 693 and has since instituted a number of data processing changes to avoid such errors in the future.

Looking to the future
It would have been easy to miss one erroneous number in the sea of data the AIA produces. However, because the AIA also published the 1,525 names, we could check the AIA data against another reliable source of information. As the AIA becomes a more knowledge-based organization, and architecture a more knowledge-based profession, “knowledge” must be similarly available to peer review and confirmation. It also would have been easy for the AIA to declare this situation “old news” and simply focus on improving its data collection. However, acknowledging the process and the corrections helps keep the focus on the future.

In a letter describing the revised number, AIA Team Vice President Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA, wrote, “While the number of newly licensed architects may not have been as large as we originally thought, we remain thrilled that these professionals have reached this significant and laudable milestone in their careers.” In balance, this year’s celebration of newly licensed architect members offers a significant addition to the AIA convention that can be continued and expanded in the future. Congratulations to the 2,470 new architects in 2003 and a warm welcome to the 693 who joined the AIA.

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