Jonathan Taylor, Assoc. AIA, LEED-AP

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Jonathan Taylor, Assoc. AIA, LEED-AP, is an assistant project manager with Goody Clancy Associates in Boston and the newly elected chair of the National Associates Committee (NAC). He previously served the AIA and Boston Society of Architects as the Massachusetts IDP coordinator. At Goody Clancy, Taylor currently is working on the $135 million renovation of the Art Deco McCormack building, designed by Ralph Adams Cram for GSA.

Education
I attended Syracuse University and graduated in 2000 with a BArch. Prior to enrolling at Syracuse, I attended a six-week summer program in architecture between my junior and senior year in high school. That was part of the reason why I picked Syracuse.

When did you know you wanted to be an architect?
Probably around second grade.

Why did you join the NAC?
I was told by Richard Fitzgerald at the BSA that there was an opening—this was two years ago now—and he thought I’d be a perfect fit for the committee. The position on the committee represented all eight chapters in New England. The last two years have been a blast—meeting other associates from across the country and seeing that the intern issues that we deal with here in New England are not isolated to New England. They’re national. We’re all going through the same thing.

What do you hope to accomplish as chair?
I’d like to continue what I’ve done in the past year as community communications director and build on that to promote a 12-month committee that all 18 associate directors, representing 18 regions of the AIA, truly feel as if they’re full participatory members and that there’s a means for them to bring ideas forward and facilitate resolution. The committee has a strategic plan, so in part I’d like to move on the actionable items in that plan. At the same time, because we’re a 12-month committee, associate directors could come up with ideas at any point in the year, so I’d like to facilitate getting their agenda enacted.

When you say you want to improve communications, do you mean in the NAC, among associates, or with the AIA?
I think all three need to improve. We’ve begun in the past year improving communications internally. I’ve created a long-range calendar, so we’re able to track for the next 12 months every event, conference call, or meeting where an associate is going to represent the committee. Beyond that, we’ve begun a report—essentially an internal newsletter within the committee—that goes out weekly, giving all members of the committee the same information, so if someone’s talking on an issue they’re talking from the same perspective. All 18 regional associate directors should be presenting regularly to their regional AIA board. Rather than have all 18 individuals write essentially the same report, if a lot of the points are written out ahead of time, we’re all speaking with the same voice. This really is the point of the NAC: to speak for associates with one unified voice.

What do associates need to support their path to licensure?
The NAC put out a white paper a little over a year ago that addressed stakeholders and the licensure process, primarily with IDP. The supervisors play a role. The mentor plays a role. NCARB has their role as the regulator, and the interns themselves have a role. The first stumbling block is to make sure all stakeholders know what their roles are. Often the intern is the one teaching everyone what their role or the process is, because for the most part they haven’t gone through IDP themselves. Or the supervisor is talking about the paper exam, and it’s been electronic now for several years. We’re actually changing from a nine-division exam to a seven-division exam.

When will that happen?
Well, it already has happened for new candidates for the exam. We’re in the midst of a transition right now, so July 1, 2009, is when everyone transitions to the seven division exam.

Do those who are currently in the process of the nine division, need to complete it before July 1?
It’s preferable if you do. For transition candidates, NCARB has created a chart mapping the nine divisions in the old exam versus the seven in the new. Depending on which ones you pass, you may have to retake divisions, which is not something you’d like to have to do. There really is an added sense of pressure to finish testing.

What would you like the AIA to know about associate members?
If we look at the membership of the Institute, 40 percent are emerging professionals. Of the total membership, 20 percent are associates, who for the most part are individuals on the licensure path. They’re planning on getting licensed eventually, if not in the next several years. They’re as involved in the Institute as they are in their firms and on the projects they work on. Licensure happens to be one aspect of their professional career, but it’s not the only thing they’re working on. They have diverse interests from sustainability to integrated practice, and if we look at the knowledge communities of the Institute, and even outside the Institute, they’re involved in community organizations and creating programs locally. They’re really forging new roads for the future of the profession. The 20 percent who are associates and the total 40 percent of emerging professionals truly are the diverse future of the profession that we constantly are talking about.

Speaking of diversity, are you seeing higher amounts of diversity in emerging professionals?
We’re actually publishing an article in AIArchitect on diversity and one of the points in the article is that we are essentially the diversity that the older generations talk about. If you look at the NAC, we are one diverse committee. I don’t think you could make the NAC more diverse. The experiences a lot of us have had in the academy is that diversity—at least along gender lines—is equal. I went to school with more females than men. The profession now needs the diversity to transcend throughout the rest of the profession and that’ll take time. We have to maintain the diversity we’ve achieved and build upon that for the life of one’s career.

What is the one issue in the profession that associates need to be addressed?
Titling is big issue from our annual meeting, which was two weeks ago. Titling was polled as one of the top issue for our regional associates.

Lack of consistency, or not reflecting the position of the associate within the firm?
It’s both. If we look at each jurisdiction, they have a different title. Within the profession, those who have a professional degree and are on a licensure track don’t know what to call themselves legally. In some jurisdictions you can call yourself an intern architect. In Massachusetts, for instance, you can. However, you have to be enrolled in IDP. I’m finished with IDP so what do I call myself?

There isn’t equality across the board in terms of title. From a health, safety, and welfare perspective, how does the public understand the role that non-licensed individuals on a licensure track play within the profession? In engineering circles, you have engineer in training, EIT. There isn’t a title that reflects the role that the traditional intern architect plays, and the public has a preconception of what intern is, whether that’s a runner or you’re getting coffee. These are individuals who have professional degrees. They are in a three-year professional development program, and they’re probably taking a licensure exam that has multiple parts. So that’ll be a dialogue I think that the NAC is going to continue. About a month and a half ago, we printed an article on titling with a blog we linked to an AIArchitect article. It received 40 or 50 comments, which is actually good for a blog question.

Who is responsible for addressing the titling issue? Is it the AIA, individual states, or NCARB?
I think all three have to be involved. Essentially the responsibility is with the state licensure board, which, depending on the jurisdiction, might consist of solely architects; architects, engineers, and landscape architects; or a whole plethora of licensed individuals including beauticians. So the makeup of licensure boards changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Whether the titling rules are statutory or regulatory is another issue. I think NCARB probably could be the solution in creating one model suggestion for what titling should be, but that will take time. One of the AIA Board of Directors public policies is on titling, and the Board reviews these policies from time to time. The policy on titling is something the NAC is going to be looking at.