Pub. 2 2014 Directory

13 This last academic year we undertook many projects, including; hosted three major events, attended four conferences, hosted six workshops for local youth, created a non-profit lecture series, start- ed a program for providing resources to our peers, hosted three design charrettes, and increased our membership to nearly a quar- ter of our student body. Thereby, increasing our relevancy within our school we’ve moved leaps and bounds in the right directions, setting a new precedent for future chapter leaders to follow. Never- the-less there is always room to improve. What we learned from last year is that transparency and accountability are paramount when approaching the division of duties within our organization. We have now adopted a regimented approach to board governance and documentation. We are first evolving our chapter at its admin- istrational aspects and expanding these skill sets into how we work with our general members and the school as a whole. By doing so we are hoping to create an ownership of responsibilities in each of the divisions of our duties and further emphasize the importance of each board member as an integral part of our organization’s functioning. We also stress ownership throughout our general membership as we are always looking to help our members find agency to further develop their own programs. One of our featured accomplishments last year was the develop- ment of the Nonprofit Lecture Series. This initiative was founded and overseen by one of our general members. During the course of the academic year the Nonprofit Lecture Series was able to bring in several guest speakers and organize several community based design charrettes. Cameron Sinclair was our signature guest lec- ture and judge for the final design charrette of the semester, the Back Yard Design Charrette. During this charrette students were to create a shelter for the homeless out of scraps in an afternoon and stay in their shelters overnight. This event created widespread exposure into the local press and college community, while helping to raise awareness for the homeless, as well as the value of the nonprofit design work. Our chapter of the AIAS continues to seek out good avenues to insert ourselves into. In the spirt of last year’s Nonprofit lecture series we have repeated the Backyard Design Charrette as well as begun designing for our Freedom By Design project, the Elerd house project, in which we will be remodeling a local disabled veteran’s house to make it ADA compliant. Free- dom by Design is an initiative that utilizes the talents of our fellow architecture students to radically impact the lives of people in our community through modest design and construction solutions. This is a venue in which our general members will gain experience resolving accessibility issues while simultaneously working with mentors and clients to further their understanding of the practical impact of architecture and design. We will begin construction on the project mid October. Another interesting program which we are developing is our Peer Reference Program, this program aims to provide students of all demographics and experience a platform to reach out to each other and form of a network of support thru the bonds of fellowship. We believe that an ongoing process of collaboration between all students is vital to attainment of a healthy student body. This pro- gram consists of compilation of reference profiles that are to be ac- cessed and used by any member of our student body for the advice or support in navigating life in college. If you would like to learn more about our chapter of the AIAS please visit us on Facebook, at AIAS Montana State University. w Our mission is to expand upon our scope of involvement within our student body and community in hopes that we can become better advocates of design and of our future profession. Our realm of involvement continues to grow as we have added more community service programs, design charrettes, increased gen- eral membership, and continued to find agency working within the professional community. ”