RIT Plan to Achieve Accreditation

! May 2010 Candidacy Application Master of Architecture Prerequisite: A four-year non-architecture-related baccalaureate degree Rochester Institute of Technology PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION Dr. William Destler, President 7000 Eastman • Rochester Institute of Technology • Rochester, NY 14623 Email: [email protected] • Phone: 585-475-2394 CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICER Dr. Jeremy A. Haefner, Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs 7000 Eastman • Rochester Institute of Technology • Rochester, NY 14623 Email: [email protected] • Phone: 585-475-6399 HEADS OF ACADEMIC UNITS Dr. Nabil Nasr, Assistant Provost and Director Golisano Institute for Sustainability 1001 Slaughter • Rochester Institute of Technology • Rochester, NY 14623 Email: [email protected] • Phone: 585-475-5106 Frank Cost, Acting Dean College of Imaging Arts and Sciences 1070 Gannett • Rochester Institute of Technology • Rochester, NY 14623 Email: [email protected] • Phone: 585-475-5436 PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR Acting Administrator, full time administrator to be hired Dr. Katherine Mayberry Vice President for Special Projects 3035 Eastman• Rochester Institute of Technology • Rochester, NY 14623 Email: [email protected] • Phone: 585-475-2607 Candidacy Application: Rochester Institute of Technology Plan for Achieving Initial Accreditation INTRODUCTION The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Master of Architecture program (M.Arch.), slated for a fall 2011 opening, is a three-year, full-time graduate program designed for students with an earned bachelor’s degree in a non-architecture ﬁeld. The program will be jointly offered by RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences and Golisano Institute for Sustainability. Program Character At a time of significant transition for the architectural profession, developing an academic program de novo allows for full incorporation of the skills and knowledge critical to the 21st- century architect. Unlike existing programs in which emerging professional issues must be accommodated through evolutionary modifications to curriculum and pedagogy, the design of this program—its content, methods, and outcomes—has been thoroughly shaped by today’s most urgent imperatives. Sustainability Chief among these is the sustainability imperative. This program is founded upon the principle that the adjective “sustainable” is always the implicit modifier of the noun “architecture.” We can no longer afford to teach anything other than sustainable architecture, regardless of the course title. Among the required sustainability courses in the curriculum are courses in Sustainability Science, Industrial Ecology, and Sustainable Buildings—all offered through our graduate programs in Sustainability. But beyond these direct forms of exposure, the entire program curriculum will be suffused with the principles and practices of sustainability. Every required course—from Integrated Building Systems to Architectural Design to Design Theory—will be presented and experienced through the lens of sustainability. Further, architecture students will be exposed to the results of cutting-edge research in such areas as material aging, clean technologies, alternative energy solutions, pollution prevention, and green product assessment. In addition to programs in the Golisano Institute, RIT offers a number of synergistic graduate programs in areas related to sustainability. Among these are an MS and ME in Sustainable Engineering; an MS in Industrial Engineering; an MS in Environmental Science; and an MS in Environmental Health and Safety Management. Over time, we anticipate incorporating courses from these programs into the M.Arch. curriculum. Urbanism By the year 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in urban environments, with 93% of the growth occurring in under-developed cities and regions. Because a degraded or under- developed urban environment has grave implications for social, economic, cultural, and environmental health, the RIT M.Arch. program will pay particular attention to urban settings and principles. The complexity of the urban environment—of which the built environment is only one of many components—will require an interdisciplinary approach to architecture education—one that references economics, public policy, sociology, and regional culture. Since the urban fabric of many cities is essentially pre-determined, the program will foreground the practices and principles of sustainable preservation and adaptive reuse. The city of Rochester—as well as other U.S. and international cities where our students will work and study—will serve as living classrooms for the students. RIT is fortunate to have strong ! "! Candidacy Application: Rochester Institute of Technology Plan for Achieving Initial Accreditation academic programs in Urban and Community Studies and in Public Policy—both of which will contribute courses to the M.Arch. Integrated Learning/Integrated Practice Like all strong architecture programs, the core educational venue for our students will be the studio, but a studio that models the same cross-disciplinary, cross-professional integration fast becoming the norm in architecture practice. From the outset, students will approach design problems within teams, learning to value and leverage their collective intelligence and diverse academic backgrounds. While the necessity of listing courses in the curriculum mask inevitably suggests a series of discrete experiences, actual instruction in the M.Arch.—both within the RIT studio and the urban studio—will be characterized by continuing cross-reference, contextualization, review, and preview. Critical topics will be introduced, applied, and re-visited on an as-needed basis, resulting in the continuing integration of architecture skills and knowledge domains. For example, the design and technical courses are co-requisites and will be fully integrated. What the students design in one course sequence will be technically investigated in the other. The Integrated Building Systems courses will integrate all the technical knowledge commonly segregated into various courses in other architecture programs—structures; building materials and methods of construction; building codes and standards; mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems; cost analysis; and site work. These three emphases—sustainability, urban revitalization, and integrated practice—are clearly included in the most recent set of NAAB student performance criteria (environmental stewardship, leadership, collaboration, and disciplinary integration). ! #! Candidacy Application: Rochester Institute of Technology Plan for Achieving Initial Accreditation ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM REPORT! PART ONE (I): INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT & COMMITMENT TO CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PART ONE (I): SECTION 1—IDENTITY & SELF-ASSESSMENT I.1.1 HISTORY AND MISSION History, Mission, Founding Principles of RIT The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) marks its founding in 1829, with the formation of the Athenaeum, a cultural association promoting literature, science, and the arts in Rochester, New York. In 1891, the Athenaeum merged with a very different institution—the Rochester Mechanics Institute, founded in 1885 to provide technical training for skilled industrial workers. The marriage of these two organizations—the one promoting arts and letters, the other career education through technical skills—would shape the unique academic portfolio that distinguishes RIT today. Today, technology, design, application, interdisciplinarity, and innovation are defining features of the RIT educational experience, shaping our distinctive cooperative education program, our diverse academic program portfolio (with such programs as microelectronic engineering, industrial design, and color science), and our highly interdisciplinary research agenda. Once delivered largely in isolation from each other, today’s programs in the arts and technology are bridging the divide, thus satisfying the demands of 21st- century employers for multi- and interdisciplinary expertise. The RIT mission links the university’s founding purposes with today’s certainties and tomorrow’s questions. [RIT will] provide a broad range of career-oriented educational programs with the goal of producing innovative, creative graduates who are well-prepared for their chosen careers in a global society…. pursue new and emerging career areas….[and] develop and deliver curricula and advance scholarship and research relevant to emerging technologies and social conditions. Teaching, learning, scholarship, research, innovation, and leadership development for promoting student success are our central enterprises. RIT’s “Educational and Access Goals” derive from the university’s unique history and shape the character of our academic program portfolio and our educational culture. Reflected in these goals are RIT’s long-standing commitments to teaching, community engagement, application, and innovation. All new academic programs must demonstrably incorporate these goals into their educational objectives and learning outcomes; thus, they are addressed as part of every annual program assessment. Because of the centrality of these goals to new program development, we include them in full in Appendix A. ! $! Candidacy Application: Rochester Institute of Technology Plan for Achieving Initial Accreditation The architecture program’s five educational objectives, which are derived from these goals, speak both explicitly and implicitly to the five perspectives. Thus the five perspectives are tightly stitched into the curriculum, extra-curriculum, and

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