Study Architecture 
ProPEL ACSA Update 12.4.15
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| Founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. | |||||||||
ACSA Update 12.11.15
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University of Buffalo
UB’s GRoW house was awarded second place in the US Solar Decathlon earning 941.191 out of a possible 1,000 points.
Irene Ayad gave a lecture – “New York Art Deco from Jazz Age to Depression” – at the State Linguistic University in Moscow.
“Special Relationships” – a chapter written by Professor Brian Carter -was published in the CAA 2015 Yearbook.
Paul Battaglia is launching the manufacture of the Hi-Sabin ™ Panel through his company, STC Architectural Products. The acoustical clouds are made of melamine foam with extraordinary sound absorbing characteristics. Their light weight make installation simple and inexpensive.
Café Fargo, an adaptive reuse project designed by Stephanie Davidson, and Georg Rafailidis has been awarded a ‘Best of Canada’ design award by the Canadian Interiors magazine. It was also recently published in the Deutsche Bauzeitung DB, AZURE and Architectural Digest.
Assistant Professor Georg Rafailidis presented the paper ‘Café Fargo’ at the ACSA Fall Conference at Syracuse University.
Selective Insulation – an insulated work space designed by Davidson Rafailidis and built in 2009 – was recently published in ‘Working in Style’ by the Swiss publisher Braun Verlag.
Assistant Professor Shannon Bassett presented ‘Shanghai Water Urbanisms-recovering Shanghai’s post-industrial waterfront-landscape. Strategies for sustainable (re)development in China’s cities’ at the IACP annual conference in June in Chongqing, China. In addition she chaired the session on Urban Design.
Assistant Professor Bassett was an invited professor at the 2015 Busan International Architecture Design Workshop organized by the Busan International Architecture Festival and Pusan National University in Korea. Professor Bassett’s urban design master plan for Bradenton, Florida was also exhibited in the NAUAIK exhibition and featured in the ensuing publication.
Architects Foundation's Design and Health Research Consortium Expands, Adding Six New Members
The Architects Foundation, along with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), today named six more schools of architecture and public health as members of the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium. The consortium helps translate research on design’s influence on public health into architectural practice for the public, policymakers, and design and public health professionals.
“These additional research teams will add to the influence the consortium is already having with some of the nation’s leading thinkers about the growing connection between design and public health,” said Architects Foundation Executive Director Sherry-Lea Bloodworth Botop. “We chose these new members because their research has the best potential for affecting policy across a wide swath of issues at the intersection of the built environment and public health.”
“The new members add depth to the collective work of the consortium, particularly in areas of physical activity and natural systems,” Michael Monti, ACSA Executive Director said. “Their work will translate findings for practice and add rigorous research that others can build on.”
Over a three-year period, the Architects Foundation, the AIA and its partners will provide institutional support and capacity building for the new consortium members, promoting collaboration through local and national partnerships and enable knowledge-sharing through conference calls and face-to-face events. Whenever appropriate, the AIA and its partners will promote the activities of the consortium with potential funders.
The AIA will also issue an annual report on the activities and accomplishments of the consortium members. Today, the Architects Foundation issued its first annual report on the activities of the consortium’s original 11 members.
The new Consortium member teams are:
• Morgan State University. The university, a Historically Black Institution (HBI) in Baltimore, is committed to the education of minorities. The University’s Community, Design, Health (CDH) Forum was initiated in August. This forum encourages interdisciplinary research on the relationships among community, design, and health. Its goal is to engage students from multiple departments–architecture, planning, landscape, sociology, public health, and psychology, and nursing–with academic and professional conversations about health and design. Using Baltimore’s urban infrastructure as the background for understanding public health concerns, CDH aspires to develop undergraduate and graduate students who can identify, design, and develop healthy environments.
• University of Memphis School of Public Health. Memphis and its Delta region, with some of the highest rates of poverty in the nation, leads the country in many public health challenges, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases. Yet walking safely is a challenge that restricts many individuals from enjoying their neighborhood gaining access to goods and services by foot. Memphis has one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the country, with between 300 to 400 pedestrian injuries every year and between 10 to 20 pedestrian fatalities. The school’s Memphis Walks’ initiative focuses on improving quality of life through improved walkability, promoting physical activity, improved air quality, and social cohesion via walking. Its goals are to further document the importance of walkability to public health and wellbeing as well as make the case for why walking more should be a priority in urban neighborhoods.
• School of Architecture, University of Minnesota. While the connections between health and the physical environment are increasingly better understood, little exists to guide and coordinate the activities of architects responsible for designing these environments. The school’s team of health-focused, human-centered systems designers, architects, and public health experts plan to engage in “in situ” research and collaborate with a low income urban community in Minneapolis to develop a systematic Design + Health Equity scorecard to 1) aid in identifying key community specific environmental assets and barriers to health equity needs and 2) offer tangible tools that guide the design/redesign at the building- block and community level.
• School of Architecture, University of Virginia. According to the American Institute of Stress, nearly one in five of American adults – or around 40 million Americans- suffers from stress-related anxiety disorders. The World Health Organization in 2011 found that 31 percent of Americans are likely to suffer from an anxiety problem at some point during their lifetimes – the worst rate in the world. Work- related stress and depression is the largest occupational health problem in the USA, and the key cause of absenteeism. This project establishes a stress environment consortium to build evidence on how urban green infrastructure (UGI) – including natural typologies like green walls/roofs can support stress mitigation and, in turn, promote health resilience and protection from chronic disease. Its goal is to develop a new national capacity to measure and understand the link between UGI and stress mitigation, including gender, race and income disparities.
• University of Washington, Department of Architecture. The University of Washington team focuses on health in the built environment in their established research initiatives at building and community levels. These initiatives include using Seattle’s Bullitt Center, which was designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, as a laboratory to test the intersection between health and the built environment on multiple scales, research on design and technology fostering energy efficiency and healthy human environments, and interdisciplinary teaching initiatives in health and the built environment. Through their multidisciplinary research and strong connection with practicing Architecture, Engineering, and Construction professionals, the team is well poised to make significant contributions to four of the six AIA Research Consortium’s approaches to health.
• Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Brown School of Social Work. The Sam Fox School’s Center for Health Research & Design uses design research methods to develop new knowledge that leads to innovative solutions for improving the experience of health and delivery of care from the community to the hospital and back. The Brown School’s Prevention Research Center explores behaviors that place Americans at risk for chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer, and stroke among vulnerable populations. The schools’ multidisciplinary research teams have collaborated on projects that address how environmental factors impact health conditions and in turn the sustainability of our communities, often intersecting with natural systems that also support the overall connectedness of the residents.
The AIA has organized its design and health initiative around six evidence-based approaches that architects can use at the building and urban scale. These six approaches—environmental quality, natural systems, physical activity, safety, sensory environments, and social connectedness—recognize that the physical environment creates health opportunities and facilitates positive health behaviors.
See these six approaches to achieving health through built environment design & policy here:
http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aiab104538.pdf
About the Architects Foundation:
The Architects Foundation preserves, honors and advances excellence in design for the benefit of the public. As a nonprofit philanthropic extension of the American Institute of Architects, the Architects Foundation is the preeminent voice and advocate for architecture and design in America. The Architects Foundation is dedicated to the belief that good design is good for all and plays an essential role in transforming lives and building a better world.
About The American Institute of Architects
Founded in 1857, members of the American Institute of Architects consistently work to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. Through nearly 300 state and local chapters, the AIA advocates for public policies that promote economic vitality and public wellbeing. Members adhere to a code of ethics and conduct to ensure the highest professional standards. The AIA provides members with tools and resources to assist them in their careers and business as well as engaging civic and government leaders, and the public to find solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. Visit www.aia.org.
About the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
ACSA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, membership association founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. The school membership in ACSA has grown from 10 charter members to over 250 schools in several membership categories. These include full membership for all accredited programs in the United States and government-sanctioned schools in Canada, candidate membership for schools seeking accreditation, and affiliate membership for schools for two-year and international programs. Through these schools, over 5,000 architecture faculty members are represented. In addition, over 500 supporting members composed of architecture firms, product associations and individuals add to the breadth of interest and support of ACSA goals. Visit www.acsa-arch.org.
The Ohio State University
It is with deep sadness that the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University announces the death of Lisa Tilder, Associate Professor of Architecture. On November 30, Lisa succumbed to a long battle with cancer while surrounded by her family. Lisa taught at the Knowlton School for more than 20 years and was an alumna (’92) of its Master of Architecture program. She is survived by her husband, Stephen Turk, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Knowlton School.
Lisa served the ACSA in a number of capacities: East Central Regional Director, ACSA Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Regional Directors Committee, Publications Committee, Awards Committee, and Nominations Committee.
Lisa was co-editor of Design Ecologies: Essays on the Nature of Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press, and the recipient of numerous awards including the Young Architect’s Award of the Architectural League of New York and the Far Eastern International Digital Architectural Design Merit Award. She was the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the US Department of Energy, and others. Her work has been featured in publications ranging from AD: Architectural Design to Metropolis and has been exhibited widely at venues including Storefront for Architecture, The Urban Center, and OK Center for Contemporary Art. She was a licensed Architect and co-founder of Ohio State’s first Solar Decathlon entry and the Pod Home, an award-winning micro-home that serves as a permanent exhibition at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus.
To respect Lisa’s wishes, Stephen and Lisa’s family have limited her internment to a small, family-only observance. Soon after the Spring 2016 term begins, the school will stage a Celebration of Lisa’s Life to honor her love of her students and the school, and the incomparable, selfless joy she imparted to all who knew her. Details for the event will be announced as they become specific.
University of Southern California
Diane Ghirardo organized a conference for the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (UCLA) on “Love and Death in the Renaissance Castle,” in November 2015, where she also presented a paper entitled “Lovers and Demons.” In December 2015, she presented a paper entitled “The Seals of Lucrezia Borgia and Isabella d’Este” at a conference on Seals and Status at the British Museum, London.
David Gerber, Assistant Professor, is co-chairing a special session at the 2016 ACSA Annual conference on Big Data and the City. He was a keynote speaker at Brazil’s SindusCON annual Building Information Modeling conference and at Anahuac University in Mexico City.
On November 17, 2015 Victor J. Jones, assistant professor of architecture inaugurated a new lecture series at Arc en rêve centre d’architecture in Bordeaux, France. Organized by Gilles Ragot, Émilie d’Orgeix, Gilles-Antoine Langlois, and Gauthier Bolle, the series is dedicated to new research in architectural history (XX-XXI centuries). Jones presented ‘Sens dessus dessous: le pont de Basento’ (Topsy-turvy: The Basento Bridge), a lecture about the Basento Viaduct (1966-76) in Potenza Italy. In anticipation of his forthcoming book about the Basento Viaduct, Jones also lectured at the Institut national des sciences appliquées in Strasbourg, France on November 8, 2015 and the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium on November 23, 2015.
Alexander Robinson is presenting a paper on the intricacies of combining Blue-Green Open Space with Urban Infrastructure in Los Angeles at the international conference Water, Megacities, and Global Change at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris alongside the major global warming conference, COP21. Following this, he will be presenting his work in Belgium at the KU Leuven Landscape Architecture Series.
Vinayak Bharne was among the nine international trans-disciplinary urban thinkers and invited speakers honored at the Urban Edge Award Seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture & Urban Planning (SARUP). Introduced in 2006, the biennial Urban Edge Award (now in its fifth iteration) recognizes excellence in the broad field of urban design and the ability of individuals to create major, positive change within the public realm through engaging research, critical practice and urban activism. Bharne was also recently part of a panel discussion on the Los Angeles Mobility Plan 2035 in the USC Urban Growth Seminar Series. His article “The Affordable City: Balancing Two Extremes with an Equitable Middle” was published in My Liveable City, Oct-Dec 2015 issue in India.
Larchmont Charter at Lafayette Park, the renovation of Welton Becket’s 1955 New York Life building for a charter school by Adjunct Associate Professor Eric Haas‘s firm DSH // architecture, was published on savingplaces.org, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Hraztan Zeitlian, AIA, LEED BD+C, NCARB, was on this Year’s Jury for the American Institute of Architects California Council (AIACC) Design Awards. He was also on the AIACC Monterey Design Conference Organizing Committee. The Conference was held in mid-October.
Assistant Professor Alvin Huang will be speaking as part of the Future Tense Lecture Series hosted by the Alaska Design Forum on Monday Dec 7 (Anchorage), Tuesday Dec 8 (Juneau), and Wednesday Dec 9 (Fairbanks). His firm, Synthesis Design + Architecture was recently honored with a 2015 A&D Trophy Award (Best Retail/Commercial Building) for The Groove@CentralWorld in Bangkok, and a 2015 SXSWEco Place By Design Award (Data/Technology Category) for the Pure Tension Pavilion. The recent release of “50 Under 50: Innovators of the 21st Century” by Images Publishing and edited by Beverly Russell, Eva Maddox, and Farooq Ameen features the work of multiple USC faculty including Patrick Tighe (Patrick Tighe Architecture), Scott Uriu (B+U), Alice Kimm (JFAK) and Alvin Huang (Synthesis Design + Architecture), as well as USC alumnus Mark Lee ’91 (JohnstonMarklee).
Professor G. Goetz Schierle was appointed Executive Editor of the Journal of Steel Structures & Construction.
Victor Regnier will return to Lisbon, Portugal in the Winter and northern Europe in the Spring to continue his research on housing and community design for frail and long-lived populations.
Scott Uriu, lecturer at USC has been included in the new book Fifty Under Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century, by Images Publishing The book showcases honorees located across many different countries, including Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States. A distinguished five-person jury presided over the final selection: Stanley Tigerman, founding partner, Tigerman McCurry, Chicago; Ralph Johnson, design principal, Perkins+Will, Chicago; Jeanne Gang, founder Gang Studio, Chicago; Marion Weiss, founding partner, WEISS/MANFREDI, New York; and Qingyun Ma, Dean of Architecture, University of Southern California, and founder MADA s.p.a.m., Shanghai and Beijing.
American University of Sharjah
The American University of Sharjah Department of Architecture is pleased to announce a number of award winning projects completed as part of the Design Build Initiative.
The Tarkeeb Wall, completed this fall under the guidance of Associate Professor William Sarnecky and Project Leader Layth Mahdi received the Design Award for design excellence in the Student Graduation Project Category at the 2015 AIA Middle East Design Awards. Fourteen students are credited with the completion of this project, which serves as a space for gathering and display at the entrance of the College of Architecture, Art, and Design.
Be-ah Reclaimed Wall, the culmination of the inaugural interior design build studio led by Assistant Professor Daniel Chavez received an Honorable Mention in the Student Graduation Project Category at the 2015 AIA Middle East Design Awards. Taking advantage of reclaimed material from a local landfill, the studio and project served as the culmination of the interior design degree sequence.
Completed in the summer of 2015, the AVM Pavilion led by former Professor Assistant Kenneth Tracy won a Merit Award in the Student Graduation Project Category at this year’s AIA Middle East Design Awards. Serving as the manifestation of a year long option studio, the jury “praise(d)” the student’s design process and the “quality of the end product”.
In the spring of this year, former Assistant Professor Emily Baker was honoured with a ACSA design build award in association with her fifth year Audi-Fab Research Studio. The project had previously won a 2014 AIA Middle East Merit Award in the Student Graduation Category.
Through the University’s support of the Design-Build Initiative directed by Professor Michael Hughes and the CAAD Labs directed by Assistant Professor Ammar Kalo the Department of Architecture is committed to full-scale teaching. The College of Architecture, Art and Design Labs house an extensive and ever growing array of analog and digital equipment enabling faculty and student research in robotics, thermoforming, CNC milling / routing, rapid prototyping, wood and metal fabrication, and ceramics.
(photo credits: William Sarnecky and Juan Roldan)
University of Minnesota
Assistant Professor Lisa Hsieh’s essay, “The Architecture Utters Nothing” was recently published in issue number 35 of the excellent architecture journal Log.
Associate Professor John Comazzi curated (with Lecturer Christian Korab) an exhibition on the architecture photography of Balthazar Korab at the Dallas Center for Architecture. Professor Comazzi also delivered a public lecture on Korab’s Life and career. Info can be found here: http://dallascfa.com/exhibition-balthazar-korab.html
Professor Tom Fisher spoke at TEDxMinneapolis recently about the future of cities and the on-demand economy. You can watch his talk here.
Associate Professor Blaine Brownell delivered a talk at the AIA Colorado Convention in October. His talk was entitled: “Material Agency: The Disruptive Nature of Architectural Innovation.” Professor Brownell continues to write weekly blog posts for Architect Magazine. His most recent writing can be found here: Link
Professor Mary Guzowski recently presented a daylighting workshop on “Places of Light: Louis Kahn and Renzo Piano on Daylighting and the Kimbell Art Museum” at the Society of Building Science Educator’s 2015 Retreat at the Mountain Learning Center in Highlands, North Carolina.
A number of our faculty members spoke at this year’s AIA Minnesota Convention, which took place last week:
Blaine Brownell
Renee Cheng
John Comazzi
Rosemary Dolata
Tom Fisher
Richard Graves
Tom Meyer
Doug Pierce
Molly Reichert
Marc Swackhamer
James Wheeler
Bruce Wright
Blaine Brownell, Marc Swackhamer, and Blair Satterfield (UBC) curated an exhibit on their book Hypernatural: Architecture’s New Relationship with Nature, which is now on display in the HGA Gallery in Rapson Hall, at the University of Minnesota. The following faculty members who were recently awarded internal Architecture Seed Grants for research and projects that advance the mission of the School of Architecture:
Ozayr Saloojee – Scaling Systems
John Comazzi – Learning Through Making
Julia Robinson – Dutch Complex Housing Symposium Program Development
Bill Conway – Linear Urbanism
Andrew Lucia – Taxonomy of Structural Curvature & Light Signatures
Andrzej Piotrowski – Architecture and Digital Humanities
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: 2016 ACSA BOARD
2016 Board of Directors
Deadline: December 7, 2015 (updated deadline)
The ACSA invites nominations for open positions on the 2016-17 Board of Directors. The open positions are First Vice President/President-Elect, Second Vice President, West Region Director, and East Central Region Director. Terms of office begin July 1, 2016.
This year’s nominations process differs from previous years, because the organization has proposed creating a Second Vice President position and combining the Secretary and Treasurer positions. (Read about the proposed Bylaws amendments HERE.)
The Nominations Committee will recommend a slate of candidates that implements the changes to the officer positions. This means nominating candidates for First Vice President/President-Elect and for Second Vice President this year, and in future years nominating candidates only for Second Vice President. The candidate elected First Vice President will serve as president in 2017-18, followed by a one-year term as Past-president. The candidate elected Second Vice President will serve as First Vice President/President-Elect in 2017-18 and President in 2018-19, followed by a one-year term as Past-president.
Moreover, in order to transition to a single Secretary/Treasurer position, the organization will not nominate candidates for this position this year. This is because the Secretary and Treasurer positions are currently staggered, with Secretary Gregory Luhan’s term expiring this year. The organization plans to appoint the current treasurer, Rashida Ng, to the Secretary/Treasurer position for the 2016-17 year. She was elected for a two-year term ending June 30, 2017. Therefore, the board will proceed with a nominations process for Secretary/Treasurer one year from now.
Eligibility and Responsibilities of Officers
Candidates for positions as officers of the Association shall be full-time full-time tenured, tenure-track, or fixed-term members of the faculty of a full member school at the time of nomination and throughout the term of office.
President. The President serves for a one-year term, and shall succeed to the term of Past President at the beginning of the next appointment year. The President presides at meetings of the Association, calls meetings of the Board of Directors, prepares an agenda for such meetings, and presides at such meetings. The President coordinates activities of the Board, Association committees, and liaison representatives, provides liaison with the officers of the American Institute of Architects, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, and the American Institute of Architecture Students, and serves as representative to the Five Presidents Council. The President also prepares a brief report of activities of the Association and the Board of Directors during the term of office for dissemination to the geographically defined constituent associations. The President is also responsible for identifying and advancing major initiatives for the Association during his or her term, in collaboration with the Board.
First Vice President (President-Elect). The Vice President serves for a one-year term and shall succeed to the term of President at the beginning of the next appointment year. The First Vice President is responsible for serving in place of the President when the President is unable to perform the necessary duties. The First Vice President also serves as a clearinghouse of information for American Regional and Canadian Directors. The First Vice President serves as a member of the Finance Committee and the Publications Committee. The First Vice President also performs such duties as requested by the President or the Board and other duties as set forth in the Rules of the Board.
Second Vice President. The Second Vice President serves for a one-year term and shall succeed to the term of First Vice President (President-Elect) at the beginning of the next appointment year. The Second Vice President is responsible for serving in place of the First Vice President when the First Vice President is unable to perform the necessary duties. The Second Vice President also performs such duties as requested by the President or the Board and other duties set forth in the Rules of the Board.
Past President. The Past President serves for a one-year term and is responsible for implementation of programs initiated during the term as President, and performs such other duties as may be assigned by the Board. The Past President serves as chair of the Nominating Committee.
The ACSA board’s Nominations Committee will review nominations for the two national officer positions. The committee is chaired by Past President Ming Fung (SCI-Arc), with additional members Nadia Anderson (Iowa State University), Ryan Smith (University of Utah), and Kim Tanzer (University of Virginia).
Eligibility and Responsibilities of Regional Directors
Each Regional Director shall be a full-time tenured, tenure-track, or fixed-term faculty member of a full member school, and shall be on the faculty of a school in the region represented.
The term of office shall be three years beginning July 1, 2016, and extending through June 30, 2019. Each Regional Director shall be elected by vote of full member schools affiliated with the particular region represented.
Regional Directors serve the ACSA in at least three ways – as members of the Board of Directors, on a variety of board committees, and as leaders of their regional constituent associations. In this latter role, the Regional Director:
- sets the agenda and chairs meetings of the Regional Council,
- maintains a file of regional records, correspondence, and minutes of regional meetings,
- oversees financial affairs and faithfully reports on expenditures,
- provides assistance to regional schools and organizations applying for institutional membership,
- prepares annual reports of regional activities for publication in the Association’s annual report, and
- provides updates to the constituency on both regional and national matters of note.
Regional Directors are required to attend three Board meetings a year: a fall meeting which typically occurs after the Administrator’s Conference, a spring meeting which typically occurs after the ACSA Annual Meeting, and a summer meeting.
Each region will have a Regional Nominations Committee made up of regional constituents that will review applications received and develop a slate of not less than two nor more than three candidates. The outgoing Regional Director is responsible for administering this process.
Ballots will be sent to all full member schools and appropriate regions by mid-January, 2016. The results of this election will be announced at the ACSA Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA in 2016. Candidates will be notified of the results in mid-February.
Nominations should include a CV, a letter of interest from the nominee indicating a willingness to serve, and a candidate statement. The deadline for receipt of nominations is December 7, 2015 (updated deadline).
Electronic submission of nominations are encouraged and can be sent to Eric Ellis at: eellis@acsa-arch.org.
| National Nominations Committee | East Central Nominations Committee | West Nominations Committee | ||
| Ming Fung, Past-President | Marci S. Uihlein, U. Illinois U.C. | Erin Moore, U. Oregon | ||
| Nadia Anderson, West Central R.D. | Whitney Moon, U. Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Kristina Yu, U. New Mexico | ||
| Ryan Smith, West R.D. | McLain Clutter, U. Michigan | Mark Cabrinha, Cal. Poly S.L.O. | ||
| Kim Tanzer, UVA |
Nominations should be sent to:
Email: eellis@acsa-arch.org
ACSA, Board Nominations
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Journal Impact: Real, Imagined or Manipulated?
Written by Barbara Opar
Barbara Opar and Barret Havens, column editors
In the past few years, the term “impact factor” has become increasingly important in the tenure process in schools of architecture. However, the concept is not new. In 1975, the term was coined by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information. During this time period, ISI began producing the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, the Social Science Citation Index as well as the Science Citation Index. These sources were used to ascertain how often certain articles were cited in the literature. But particularly in the humanities, this was just one factor used to determine the importance of a specific author’s work and research.
Impact factors are now weighted much more heavily in tenure deliberations. Our ever growing reliance on the internet and the ease of tracking citations is partially responsible. But certainly publishers have actively fostered this practice. Journal titles with high impact factors are viewed as more important publication venues than those with lower impact.
The impact factor is essentially a citation measure. ISI products include the Journal Citation Reports Database which annually publishes impact factor- but only for those journals indexed in the ISI databases.
How are impact factors determined? Traditionally, the impact of a specific journal is determined by the number of times specific articles from a two year period were cited. The number of times an article was cited is divided by the total number of articles published during that same time period.
The calculation of impact factors in itself presents some debatable practices. How does the number of times an article was cited relate to its research quality? The journal impact factor only tracks the first few years of a publication. Currently, impact factors take into account more than just article citations. They track citations or the mere mention of an article in reviews, letters, editorials, meeting abstracts, and even notes. There is uneven coverage in many different disciplines and between disciplines.
But now, the November 5, 2015 editorial in Inside Higher Education is alleging that journal impact factors have lost their credibility. Practices noted include editor coercion and online queues.
See the full editorial at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/05/editorial-says-journal-impact-factors-have-lost-credibility
The journal impact factor is likely to remain in place. But perhaps academia will turn to a more comprehensive way of evaluating research quality and consider other measures in addition to the journal impact factor.
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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