ARCC President's Report - 1997

ARCC has had a positive and productive year characterized by continued membership interest and support, service to member organizations and to represented disciplines and professions, and the initiation of new collaborative outreach efforts with sister organizations.

Our achievements in this regard are directly linked to ARCC's most fundamental goal, which is to "facilitate the development of an architectural research culture, including the infrastructure of researchers, facilities, equipment, research centers, and educational programs." In that context, ARCC has spearheaded several major initiatives in 1997.

The first initiative was the panel session on "Research on the Intemet" organized and conducted by Vice President Walter Grondzik at the ACSA annual meeting in Dallas in March. That presentation featured speakers from several ARCC member institutions (University of Manitoba, VPI, Arizona State, FAMU) who discussed the use of the Intemet/World Wide Web as a research and teaching tool. That session was well attended and served as a useful forum to exchange ideas and approaches to using the extraordinary resources of the Internet. The discussion was a forerunner to ARCC's significant website development this year (www.famu.edu/soa/ibs/arcc.htm), also undertaken by Prof. Grondzik.

In April two ARCC initiatives were the linked conferences on "Recent Research in Architecture and Planning" and "Doctoral Education in Architecture Schools: the Challenge of the 21St Century" conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Organized by Jean Wineman, Julia Robinson and myself, these meeting brought together more than 100 senior scholars, new faculty, doctoral students, and university administrators from across North America to discuss topics ranging from the development of new doctoral programs to research papers in a variety of fields. An ARCC review panel selected the best conference paper from among the scores of submissions to the research conference, and we presented that award to Pauline Morin, from Georgia Tech yesterday.

This is significant not only becauso this was the second ARCC conference paper award (the first being made to Prof. Iver Wahl at the University of Oklahoma last year), but because this award was made to a doctoral student. The present ARCC Board has made it clear, I believe, that they place a high value on doctoral education in architecture and on the contributions of doctoral students and this award makes that explicit.

Ms. Morin's paper on "Ciceronian Texts..." was published in ARCC's "1997 Research Conference Papers", a peer-reviewed selection of papers presented at the Georgia Tech Research Conference. That publication was produced at Arizona State University by publications director Mary Kihl, who, along with her staff, has continued to produce both high quality conference publications, as well as the ARCC Newsletter throughout 1997. Prof. Kihl and Arizona State deserve high praise for their efforts in this regard and we thank thPm

ARCC's collaborative efforts with ACSA and AIA grew dramaticaily in 1997. In September of this year ARCC formally joined with those groups to form the Initiative for Architectural Research" or IAR, which is the successor to previous ACSA/AIA research organizations. Some of our major intents in this collaborative effort are to further strengthen the services we can offer our own member institutions through access to new communication vehicles and forums and to build bridges across artificial turf divisions. I am assured that ACSA's next President, Wayne Drummond, will seek to continue this interaction between ARCC and ACSA and I would hope that this receptivity will be reciprocated by the new ARCC leadership and by the AIA. I want to acknowledge and thank ACSA Executive Director Martin Moeller for his vital role in initiating (and negotiating) this new effort and thank ACSA's new research coordinator, Michelle Rinehart, for her efforts in making it a reality.

I also want to thank them and the AIA for their assistance in helping us put together yesterday's meeting/symposium involving presentations from federal agency representatives as well as the session on collaboration among architectural research groups. This and our annual meeting today are the major initiatives that end ARCC's year. Both sessions carry forward our goals of linking our business meetings to meaningful presentations and discussions which will serve our members and attract them to participate in the business of running the organization.

A major initiative planned for 1998 is the North Carolina State\EME\ARCC Ulnternational Conference on Research in Design Education". That conference will be discussed further this morning but it is worth emphasizing that it an outgrowth of 1997 ARCC Board's planning and budgeting strategies. My expectation is that this effort will be a major success for all the parties concerned and that it will continue to involve ARCC in the international arena where our membership has significantly mueased in recent years.

Relative to membership and to budgets, ARCC has maintained reasonable stability with a core group of 40+ members for 1997. We do have indications that several schools wish to join as new members in the coming year and at least one (Washington University) is seeking to return as a member. We welcome them to ARCC.

As the Treasurer's Report makes clear, our operating funds for 1996-97 have come almost entirely from membership dues. That is good insomuch as membership numbers have been generally stable in 1997 and we remain solidly in the black as a result of prudent planning and budgeting. Thus, this ARCC Board and I are delighted to leave a reasonable financial surplus to our successors. Despite that - and this is the bad part -- I believe that our reliance on membership as the primary source of funding is inherently dangerous. I hope ARCC's new leadership will help diversify organizational income - a difficult but very necessary task.

In regard to budgets and membership issues, I want to express my sincere thanks to Robert Johnson of Texas A&M; University for his extraordinary attention, care, and efforts demonstrated in his service as Treasurer over the past several years (not just 1997). We all owe Bob a debt of gratitude for his good work in this capacity. Thank you Bob.

Finally, I want to express my appreciation to everv member of the present ARCC Board for their interest and support this part year, and to previous Board members (some of whom are probably in this room) for their support over last three years. I am honored to have served you and our member institutions as president of this fine organization. Thank you.

Richard H. Schneider
President

Department of Urban & Regional Planning
College of Architecture
University of Florida