History of the Leadership Committee

In Service to the Nation, goal seven of Ernest Boyer and Lee Mitgang’s seminal 1996 Building Community: A New Future for Architecture Education and Practice, challenged the architectural profession to actively embrace civic engagement as crucial to the future of the profession and the country as a whole. “Perhaps never before in history have the skills, the broad vision and the ideals of the architecture profession been more urgently needed.” wrote Boyer and Mitgang. The inaugural AIA Leadership Institute that convened in Washington, DC in March 1997 was a direct response to this challenge. Since 1997, successive classes of architects have graduated from several conferences known as the Leadership Institute.

At the AIA 2004 National Convention and Expo in Chicago, a group of Leadership Institute alumni met and committed to the decision to make leadership a core value for members. Over the next year the group worked diligently to apply for knowledge community status. At the close of 2005, the Committee on Leadership Education (CLE) has been granted incubator status for 2006/7 and is committed to facilitate research, and provide training for all architects to lead in the profession, community, or political realms while helping society gain a greater understanding of the importance of architecture. The CLE advisory group plans to develop their charter and seek to expand leadership opportunities for architects; to empower new leaders; to nurture and promote leadership roles across the full spectrum of an architect’s career and to advocate opportunities for alliances with leaders in other professions.

In the fall of 2007 in a meeting of the Board Knowledge Community, the Committee on Leadership Education was granted full status as a Knowledge Community. Our goal is to continue the mission and continue and grow the dialogue with all members to share, and support the education of future leaders.