AIA Virginia member, Rebecca Edmunds, AIA, has experience helping FAIA nominees across the country for 20 years as a volunteer and consultant. The juries have become more critical… so here’s some advice from her if you are considering an application.
Fellowship, Part 1: The Shrinking Pinnacle
Fellowship, Part 2: High Bars and Crit Culture
Fellowship, Part 3: The Path Forward
Fellowship, Part 4: Quantifying your Influence
Fellowship, Part 5: Fellowship is a Verb
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is elevating four AIA members from AIA Virginia to its prestigious College of Fellows, AIA’s highest membership honor for their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. The 2024 Jury of Fellows is elevating 96 members this year to the College of Fellows.
The fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.
As many of you know, the College of Fellows is AIA’s highest membership honor, with only 3% of members achieving this distinction. The bar is justifiably high, and the jury deliberates for days on the hundreds of applicants. If you’re new to AIA or interested in understanding the process better, you can learn more about the nomination and criteria, which includes fellowship objects, here.
The newly elevated fellows from AIA Virginia are:
New fellows will be honored at the AIA Virginia Fellows Fête, March 16, 2024 at Barboursville Vineyards.
New fellows will be honored at the AIA Awards Gala, June 7, 2024, at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. Learn more about fellowship on AIA’s website.
On Saturday, March 18, 2023 the fellows from Virginia celebrated again in person at The Grand Salon & DuPont Gallery of the Visitors Center at James Madison’s Montpelier. New Fellows, Rob Reis, FAIA and Ken Martin, FAIA were welcomed into the group. Their formal investiture will happen in June at A’23 in San Francisco. Thanks to the chair of the Virginia Fellows is Jane Rathbone, FAIA, for pulling together this great event!
photos courtesy of Jane Rathbone and Paul Battaglia.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is elevating one AIA members from AIA Virginia to its prestigious College of Fellows, AIA’s highest membership honor, for their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. Less than three percent of the architecture profession achieve AIA Fellowship.
The fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level. Architects who have been elevated to fellowship can be identified by the designation FAIA after their name.
Included in the list below are the newly elevated members from AIA Virginia:
• Mr. Robert V. Reis, FAIA
Visit AIA National’s website for more information on the College of Fellows or to view the complete list of newly elevated architect fellows.
Cultivating Your Path to Fellowship
Reverse Engineering the FAIA Submission Process to Develop Meaning & Purpose in Practice
Four, 1-hour sessions starting Wednesday, January 25th.
4 AIA LU | Elective
Too often AIA members approach achieving Fellowship at the end of a significant phase of their career. The result is the demographic composition of the College of Fellows remains predominantly older, white males. These sessions seek to elevate diversity in the College’s ranks by teaching young and mid-career architects to reverse engineer their path to Fellowship using the AIA’s Sample Application, a specialized outline, storytelling techniques, and writing basics to define and amplify their voices and accomplishments. This method advances meaning and intention in attendees’ career paths and, ultimately, will bring younger and more diverse professionals to advancing the mission and leadership of the College of Fellows and its grant funding activities.
Mapping a career around AIA Fellowship provides a path to positively impact others and elevate the value, potential and reach of the many career paths architects take. Attendees will gain inspiration on finding time for introspection, planning and preparation to explore, define and elevate meaning in practice.
Learning Objectives
Cultivating Your Path to Fellowship
Reverse Engineering the FAIA Submission Process to Develop Meaning & Purpose in Practice
Four, 1-hour sessions starting Wednesday, January 25th.
4 AIA LU | Elective
Too often AIA members approach achieving Fellowship at the end of a significant phase of their career. The result is the demographic composition of the College of Fellows remains predominantly older, white males. These sessions seek to elevate diversity in the College’s ranks by teaching young and mid-career architects to reverse engineer their path to Fellowship using the AIA’s Sample Application, a specialized outline, storytelling techniques, and writing basics to define and amplify their voices and accomplishments. This method advances meaning and intention in attendees’ career paths and, ultimately, will bring younger and more diverse professionals to advancing the mission and leadership of the College of Fellows and its grant funding activities.
Mapping a career around AIA Fellowship provides a path to positively impact others and elevate the value, potential and reach of the many career paths architects take. Attendees will gain inspiration on finding time for introspection, planning and preparation to explore, define and elevate meaning in practice.
Learning Objectives
Cultivating Your Path to Fellowship
Reverse Engineering the FAIA Submission Process to Develop Meaning & Purpose in Practice
Four, 1-hour sessions starting Wednesday, January 25th.
4 AIA LU | Elective
Too often AIA members approach achieving Fellowship at the end of a significant phase of their career. The result is the demographic composition of the College of Fellows remains predominantly older, white males. These sessions seek to elevate diversity in the College’s ranks by teaching young and mid-career architects to reverse engineer their path to Fellowship using the AIA’s Sample Application, a specialized outline, storytelling techniques, and writing basics to define and amplify their voices and accomplishments. This method advances meaning and intention in attendees’ career paths and, ultimately, will bring younger and more diverse professionals to advancing the mission and leadership of the College of Fellows and its grant funding activities.
Mapping a career around AIA Fellowship provides a path to positively impact others and elevate the value, potential and reach of the many career paths architects take. Attendees will gain inspiration on finding time for introspection, planning and preparation to explore, define and elevate meaning in practice.
Learning Objectives
Cultivating Your Path to Fellowship
Reverse Engineering the FAIA Submission Process to Develop Meaning & Purpose in Practice
Four, 1-hour sessions starting Wednesday, January 25th.
4 AIA LU | Elective
Too often AIA members approach achieving Fellowship at the end of a significant phase of their career. The result is the demographic composition of the College of Fellows remains predominantly older, white males. These sessions seek to elevate diversity in the College’s ranks by teaching young and mid-career architects to reverse engineer their path to Fellowship using the AIA’s Sample Application, a specialized outline, storytelling techniques, and writing basics to define and amplify their voices and accomplishments. This method advances meaning and intention in attendees’ career paths and, ultimately, will bring younger and more diverse professionals to advancing the mission and leadership of the College of Fellows and its grant funding activities.
Mapping a career around AIA Fellowship provides a path to positively impact others and elevate the value, potential and reach of the many career paths architects take. Attendees will gain inspiration on finding time for introspection, planning and preparation to explore, define and elevate meaning in practice.
Learning Objectives
Mr. Britt is President / Treasure of Sulton Campbell Britt & Associates (SCB) and the Principal in Charge of Design and Marketing for the firm. He joined the firm of Sulton Campbell, Architects in 1975 as manager of the firm’s Baltimore branch offices, after representing Moshe Safdie in the design and planning of Coldspring Newtown and the Park Heights Urban Renewal Master Plan. He was made a partner at SCB in 1978 and in 1985 he assumed his role as president and treasurer.
In addition to his extensive experience managing and administrating a successful architecture practice, Mr. Britt’s strongest fields of design and planning expertise include housing medical facilities, educational laboratories, recreational facilities, museums, urban design, and community planning. In regards to urban design/planning and revitalization projects, Mr. Britt has participated in nearly all of the planning commissions awarded to the firm. In 2009 He led SCB in a Joint Venture with Moshe Safdie & Associates, his former employer, as one of six national finalists in the Smithsonian Institution’s International design competition for the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
As he steps away from full-time practice to join the faculty at Hampton University School of Architecture, he is leading SCB’s efforts to complete the design of the African American Civil War Museum, in Washington DC. and the Dox Thrash House Restoration, in Philadelphia, his hometown. Mr. Britt was elevated to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellow in 1992 and a 2005 recipient of the AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. award and the 2003 Upjohn Award. From 1983 through 1984 he also served as President of the National Organization of Minority Architects. In 1999 he was honored by Lambda Alpha International for his contributions to Urban Economic Development in the Baltimore / Washington corridor.
Mr. Britt has enjoyed sharing his knowledge of the profession with young people as a visiting Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the University of the District of Columbia, Morgan State University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T University, Southern University, and Tulane University.
Where did you go to college?
Masters of Architecture, Columbia University 1972
Bachelor of Science, Drexel University 1969
Certificate Real Estate Development,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1989
What does it take to be an architect? Was there an architect that particularly inspired you?
I was first introduced to what an architect does by my uncle, at 10 -11 years old while working with him on a construction site. That lead me to go to a technical high school with an architectural drafting program. My best friend’s mother worked in a restaurant where an “architect” frequent for lunch and she invited me to come to the restaurant and she’d introduce me. I had no idea who Louis Kahn was at the time, but I was thrilled at the opportunity to clean his office and put out the trash after school.
What are you currently reading?
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
Why do you volunteer with AIA?
As one of the first recipients of an AIA/Ford Foundation Scholarship in 1968, I’ve felt obligated to give back to the organization. I hope I’ve been a good return on that investment on a Black kid from North Philadelphia.
On Saturday night, April 10th, the Region of The Virginias celebrated the 2020 and 2021 elevated fellows – 13 in total!!!
Our new Fellows Regional Representative, Jane Rathbone, FAIA, gathered nearly 60 fellows and their spouses and guests to raise a toast to the new fellows and then have some fun cooking a delicious dinner with Chef Rolf Strub from Culinary Concepts AB out of Charlottesville.
Thank you to our sponsors:
