The United States Congress has passed a bill which will lead to architecture being officially recognized as a STEM subject. The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act was lobbied by the AIA in an effort to “encourage a more diverse workforce, fulfill the promise of design as the synthesis of art and science, and affect a fundamental change in educational curricula.”
The bi-partisan act will allow states to use federal money to modernize the Career and Technical Education curriculum, allowing for an increase in funds available for architectural education at a high-school level. The recognition of architecture as a STEM subject embodies the profession’s history of ingenuity and problem solving, and its operating spheres at the intersection of art and science.
While architects and AIA components have been working to bring design to K-12 students through special programs and activities for years, this bill helps codify those efforts. Importantly, it exposes a new generation of students, and better prepares them for, a career in architecture.
-AIA press release
In total, over $1 billion in career and technical education grants will be made available to the states. With employment opportunities projected to grow over the next decade, the legislation will herald the modernization of architectural curriculums, which a vast majority of states has thus far failed to do in decades.
STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is a grouping of academic disciplines identified in an effort to proactively improve competitiveness in science and technology development in the U.S. curriculum.
The bill, available to view here, was signed into law by President Trump on July 31st, 2018.
News via: AIA
