IfA - A Chartered Institute

[BAJR]

Thank Dino... and in a bid to pull this thread back to the discussion.

I have now added a poll. I will be spreading the news of this poll across all BAJR outlets. so would love to see a representative sample of archaeologists.

[Unitof1]

Apparently the old ifa was turned down for chartered status

http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/showthread.php?2280-chartered-status&p=43846&viewfull=1

A few years ago, 2008, the institute changed its name in order to attract professionals from the wider historic environment sector, attempting to go chartered it would appear that it would like to define a distinct profession, presumably its got a definition for heritage professional.

Then there is the criteria

http://www.privy-council.org.uk/output/Page45.asp

[SIZE=3]Each application is dealt with on its merits, but in the case of professional institutions the main criteria are:

(a) the institution concerned should comprise members of a unique profession, and should have as members most of the eligible field for membership, without significant overlap with other bodies.

(b) corporate members of the institution should be qualified to at least first degree level in a relevant discipline;

© the institution should be financially sound and able to demonstrate a track record of achievement over a number of years;

(d) incorporation by Charter is a form of Government regulation as future amendments to the Charter and by-laws of the body require Privy Council (ie Government) approval. There therefore needs to be a convincing case that it would be in the public interest to regulate the body in this way;

(e) the institution is normally expected to be of substantial size (5,000 members or more).

It should be stressed that appearing to meet these criteria does not mean that a body will automatically be granted a Charter.
[/SIZE]

but lets pretend that chartered status was granted and then it was granted the right to register archaeologists and that anybody who was not chartered was not allowed to call themselves an archaeologists only then would we get to whats most important and that is that the ifa would have to decide on the uniform

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&PageNumber=0&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=1082871&ActiveTextDocId=1082871&filesize=17612

Only a mankini will do, thing is what colour and material will be acceptable across the sexes, sises, ages and dont forget the comuimudity and vollunueenier archaeologists.

What we need hosty is a poll

[Dinosaur]

Looks like IFA will have to substantially up its membership then! - erm, good thing they're including non-archaeologists (for them, anyway) since there aren't 5000 archaeologists in Britain, or are they going to have to wait for a major construction boom? :face-stir:

[BAJR, replied to your note but not sure if mine made it out of my machine past all the security I don't know how to switch off, seemed to get some error messages but it claims it's 'sent'!]

[Geli]

I would have no objection to this in principle, if the principle of going for a chartered status leads to a better defined professional path for individuals working in archaeology and this was to help create better standards of work? However, as noted above questions should be asked as to why the IFA at present only attracts only a small percentage of the overall workforce to membership. What's really going to be the benefit to the ordinary joe. Will it ultimately mean that less and less people will be able to legitimately refer to themselves as archaeologists?

[chrysalis]

Latest reply to a query of mine on fees by Tim Howard

"It is hoped that the cost of chartering the Institute would not be reflected in increased fees for members.
If we were ultimately to create a category of ?Chartered Archaeologist? (which would not include all members), the subscriptions of such members may well (I imagine) reflect (to a greater or lesser degree) their new status and the cost of validating them. This is something that would have to be discussed and decided."


by which i read between the lines that they may well drop fees to up the membership to the required percentage, then up fees once we're chartered and over a barrel.

[the invisible man]

I can't see anywhere in the quoted statement anything that implies that fees would be lowered, or indeed increased. I can only see an observation that fees for Chartered Archaeologists IF such a category can be/is ultimately introduced, "may well" be slightly higher, as one would expect, really. I infer thatthis means that fees for non-chartered archaeologists would not increase to subsidise the chartered ones.

As I understand it conferring chartered status on individuals would be a long way down the line in any case.

[Oxbeast]

Also, if it were a chartered institute, there would be generally more chance of getting employers to pay for it.

What might be of more concern to some on here is that the top rung (Chartered status) would be an all graduate affair. Although my feeling is that the numbers of non-graduates in archaeology is pretty small.

[Dinosaur]

Tends to go with age, lots of non-graduates in their 40s and 50s, relatively less as the age group gets younger, profession has been undergoing a change from a largely non-graduate (or at least not archaeology graduate) to graduate-based workforce over the last 30 or so years, reflected to some extent in people's qualifications. In the late 70s and early 80s many university archaeology departments were largely staffed by people with degrees in other subjects (Classics, History etc.), when I started Uni in 1980 I think I'm right in saying only 1 member of the teaching staff in my department actually held an archaeology degree, not even the Prof!

[2403381]

Don't think it should really matter about prior qualifications. A exam, test, proof of proffesional competance would be more appropriate. Many of the best field archaeologists I've met have no qualifications whilst many newly graduated may think they know it all but soon discover the truth (I count myself in this category). Many uni's have no practical elements, and those that do often have no real commercial value. I don't mean this as a critism, I don't think that its entirely practicle for uni's to teach field archaeology to a commercial level. I only mean this to say that having a degree doesn't mean you know what your doing, even if you do understand the theory.

Although I suppose I would be nieve not to think that in many of the commercial companies a series of letters after your name does help you raise through the ranks. I can think of one specific instance of an individual (By and far the best archaeologist I've ever worked with [git]) who whilst working at the equivilant grade of an SPO was on the wages of a APO because he didn't have any prior qualifications. I have heard some people say that a degree gives you the theoretical background to place your site in context and thats why you need a degree, but seriously does anyone believe this? I have a degree and I don't think my report writing or site recording has gained any additional clout, eureka moments or thought provoking insights?

[ex-archaeologist]

I will start by saying that I support chartered status for the IFA; I think if we can have a Chartered Institute of Linguists, a Chartered Institute of Public Relations, a Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and an Institute of Chartered Foresters (with over 1000 members), then we can have a Chartered Instute of Archaeologists or a Chartered Historic Environment Institute.

At the moment Wikipedia (which is where I got the above from), lists the IfA alongside the British Horse Society, the Institute of Tourist Guiding and oddly, the Law Society.

I think that any chartered body would have to reflect the broad church of archaeology and historic environment specialists within its membership so it would need to improve the take up of membership not only amongst junior practitioners but also from within the academic community as well. I think it may also be worth considering, but I stress not downgrading, its membership structure. Traditionally Archaeologists have needed to practice for a minimum of seven years before they can hope to achieve MIfA, which perhaps reflects the comparitively low proportion of MIfA's within the wider proffession. For comparison this contrasts with the three years it takes to charter with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (MCIPS) or the two years it takes to achieve Chartered Forester status (MICF). Perhaps more relevant to archaeology, Chartered Environmentalist status can be achieved after three years via the standard route. All these figures are for post-qualification experience, I presume after graduating from a recognised course.

I am not saying that people should be eligible for MIfA status 2-3 years after graduating, archaeological remains are an irreplacable, finite and fragile resource and most fieldwork is by its very nature destructive. It is therefore important to have a cadre of fully qualified proffessionals to manage and assess this process and the knowledge and experience neccesary to achieve this can take many years to aquire. Given this it might be worth considering having two grades of chartered membership, the current MIfA grade set at its current level with its validation requirements retained, and so as to be in line with other chartered proffesional bodies, a lower level of chartered membership, similar to the current AIfA grade. What we would then wind up with is a proffesional structure similar to this;

Non Corporate Member:
Student/ Affiliate

Corporate Membership:
Graduate Member: Working towards chartered status through a clearly defined, rigorously validated process of post qualification assessment, controlled by the Institute and involving mentoring by an archaeologist chartered at the MIfA level.

Chartered Level 1: A fully qualified competant, validated proffessional continuing to develop their career.

Chartered Level 2: The current MIfA grade for senior members of the proffesion, possibly renamed fellowship to reflect status although this could create confusion.

I have probably let my thoughts run away with me a bit too much here and I have also just realised it couldn't be called the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists as its initials would be CIA.