Summary: This week’s mail brings a mixed bag of e-letters about a variety of topics. Most popular for comment is last week’s Emerging Professionals article on NAAB accreditation as the path to licensure. These letters join the 44 comments (a record number) on last week’s blog dealing with the same topic. Another reader fondly remembers George Notter, who passed away December 26. Still others comment on one of AIA Westchester’s design award winners and the Green Globes program. And, if you agree with last week’s poll about how bad it is to pay $3/gallon for gasoline, read what an architect in the Virgin Islands has to say.

Re: Path to Licensure: NAAB Accredited Degree

I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1989 with a four-year degree in Environmental Design. After approximately five years of experience and completion of the IDP program, I took and passed the exam. Shortly afterward, I relocated to Minnesota and found out that neither my degree nor my experience was acceptable for registration. Some time later I was informed of NCARB’s BEA program and thought my problems were solved but then found out Minnesota will not accept that either. Since moving to Minnesota I have practiced in a professional no-man’s land; registered but not, an architect but not able to identify myself as one, a member of the AIA but not being able to put that on my business card. During meetings when someone refers to me as the “Architect” I should technically deny that title or say that I am only registered in Colorado; in Minnesota I am not an “Architect.” That obligation or restriction is nearly impossible to comply with, so I am continually flirting with potential disciplinary action.

The intent of licensing regulations is to protect the life and safety of the public and prevent a non-licensed individual from practicing but in reality I am practicing no differently than a registered architect and it simply places me in an incredibly awkward position on a continual basis. In my opinion, the University of Colorado has done me and others an incredible disservice and the State of Minnesota is unreasonable not to accept NCARB’s BEA program. If there is a way for me to contact others in a similar position and perhaps have overcome this obstacle I would very much appreciate it. That is my experience.

—Mark Thiede, AIA
Associate, TSP Architecture Engineering Construction
Minnetonka, Minn.

I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Taylor’s assumption that an NAAB-accredited degree should be the primary way to satisfy an architect’s educational requirement towards licensure. I have been busting my a** for 10 years in this field with a tech school degree and a whole lot of experience on the job with many different facets of construction. On the job experience is the only true architecture school. I have a year of IDP to go until I can take the ARE. I do not want my hard work to go to waste over “not having the right degree.”

One of the best architects I have ever worked with took the same route I am many years ago. He, in my opinion, is one of the most real life educated people I have ever met and a pleasure to learn from. He has taught me more about architectural theory and design than I ever could have learned from a text book at a big-name college.

Has Mr. Taylor, like so many in the profession, forgotten the roots of humanity and design? The greatest architect that we will ever see was a University of Wisconsin drop out; he didn’t need a degree to change the world and neither do I.

—Michael A. Martin, Assoc. AIA
Intern Architect, Consolidated Construction Co. Inc.
Appleton, Wis.

Hopefully, a person with a professional degree in architecture can someday in the near future use the word "architect." The word intern is absolutely inappropriate!! The two acceptable titles should be "architect" and "licensed architect.” I am 50 years old, have a BArch from a university in Canada, received my master‘s degree from the U of Texas at Austin at age 23, and have many years of experience. I have my own residential architecture design firm and I can't call myself an architect.

—Nidy Hendrickson

Re: A Tribute to George M. Notter, 1933–2007: AIA loses a great friend and leader

We worked together in the early '60s, and remained friends until now. I was a principal in his firm in the mid '90's. This architect will sorely miss that architect and friend.

—William L. Awodey, AIA
WLA-Architecture Inc.
Melbourne, Fla.

Re: UBC Okanagan’s Fipke Centre Earns Five Green Globes
Disappointing to see the AIA participating in the greenwashing of Green Globes. How can a building that is not even built have earned a green rating?

—Jean Ascoli, AIA, LEED® AP
Bailey Edward Architecture
Champaign, Ill.

Ed note: The AIA does not endorse any one green building rating system. Read the Institute’s position statement on sustainable rating systems.

Re: AIA Westchester/Mid-Hudson Honors Area Architecture

About the Switchback House: With luck, this project would have gotten a "B" in a fourth year class at N.C. State in the early 1950s.

—Frank H. Smith III, AIA
Smyrna, Ga.

Ed. Note: Obviously, the AIA Westchester jury disagrees. So did we: We put it on the front page.

Re: Poll: How will you deal with gas prices hovering above $3 a gallon?

Try hovering at just about $4 a gallon with the largest oil refinery in the Western Hemisphere about 40 miles away.

—Patricia Hanada, AIA
St. Thomas, USVI