IfA to be abolished and replaced by......

[GnomeKing]

John, that is all very wells,

but;

Is it a good thing that the currently Vice Chair of the Institute for Archaeologists and Chair of the Institute's Professional Development and Practice Committee, is not only the same person, but somebody with a massivley vested interest as a Director (one of many) of a certain uber-consultancey?

is it a good thing?

- i'm really not too sure a BA and a few years digging (no matter how long you work on your MBA) really qualifies a person as a chair on a Practice Committee.... wouldn't somebody else, say with major research site publication, academic recognition, or perhapes a demonstrable and very indepth technical knowledge be better ?

looks awfully like a coperate cuckoo in the nest to me....

[John Wells]

Two things.
The big picture: Individuals and personalities are irrelevant in the long term. They come and go. It is similar to those who say they do not like Alex Salmond, so they will not vote for Scottish independence!
All posts should be by election, sit in the wings and your views will not be heard, and others will chose who represents your profession both nationally and internationally. Those in positions of power and influence are exactly the ones whose expertise (and contacts) should be called upon.
Qualifications: The qualities required to run effective organisations go way beyond the grass roots qualifications. The Police Force, for example, have now decided to appoint people to high ranks who have no policing experience at all. Even accountants are useful ;o)

[GnomeKing]

I disagree - if corperate and bussiness intrests are 'inserted' at conception the result will indeed be a bastard...
i certainly did not vote for this person...and again, 'those in positions of power' are excatly the people who need to be held accountable, and constrained by an effective INDEPENDENT body.

i really feel that the lack of academic and research credentials is a very serious failing for a Practice Comitee.

we could also look indeatail at the actual work said ubber-consultancey has been involved in, and the degreee to which they represent best practice (especially from a Reserach Framework and applied techniques perspective)

contacts - shmonktacs - are these with Researchers, Acedemics, Specialists, or just other coperate uber-consultants and former employees? Besides, so many contacts looks awfully like favourtism to me..........

how has this person demonstrated not just good, but best practice? on what authority do they speak? where is the publication record?

WE DO need a better IFA - it would be better with out corperate cuckoos, and this seems a painfully obvious place to start !!!!


Ps - the Police Commionser nonsense is a great case in piont - a bad idea that will not last, and will be looked back on as just silly...........

[kevin wooldridge]

We should stop this thread now- the last few comments have been both inaccurate in its assumption and unfair in its conception....

[John Wells]

Kevin is most likely right. I have removed my last entry to avoid eliciting an eristical response, especially based on misunderstanding!

I have never come across such a poorly represented body of disparate workers (ie outside any professional organisation), that appear so distrustful, argumentative and cannot see a potentially good thing when it is starring them in the face.
Which professional bodies have reduced their effectiveness and lowered standards, and the prospects of their members, by becoming Chartered?

But I probably presume too much in offering my observations on the nature and function of Chartered professional bodies, especially in this case, as I am not an archaeologist.

[Marc Berger]

Mr Wells.. a lot of Chartered Professional bodies normally require graduate qualifications for the mainstay of its membership qualification, the ifa don't seem to. Should a graduate archaeologist take them seriously? The ifa seems to have very few academic archaeologists as members.

[John Wells]

OK, I will add my two pennyworth again.
'Should a graduate archaeologist take them seriously?' Yes!

The point that Marc raises is a good one. Many professional bodies started by offering membership to those without degrees but who were working professionally within the remit of their discipline. It is a standard approach not to destabilize the profession and effectively discredit established workers. Often these professional bodies started as leaned societies, or incorporated such societies into their membership.
Furthermore, it is not unusual to offer chartered status automatically to the main grade of membership on obtaining the Royal Charter. This is often referred to as the grandfather rule or clause.
Professional bodies evolve. Membership requirements become more stringent, but membership grades more stratified to maximise membership and representation, but most of all income. With time, those without the more formal qualifications become more of a minority. At the top of the evolutionary scale, continued membership/accreditation/Chartership often requires proof of continuing education to ensure that members are keeping up to date right through their career.

The Society for Radiological Protection is a good example of a very small chartered body with considerable influence: http://www.srp-uk.org/membership/how-to-join
See the note for Mature Candidates: file:///C:/Users/HOME/Downloads/Application%20Guidance%20(1).pdf

Rules need to be flexible. I would not have been able to do biological research from my early 20s, if all the institutions that I applied to had insisted on my having studied the subject beyond the age of 13 at school. Most expected a relevant degree. In this respect, I am particularly indepted to the University of Oxford. My training and research, from the outset, involved seeing patients in clinics and excising tumour samples from freshly removed lobes of lungs, in the operating theatre. On the job training (albeit trial by fire) was a wonderful crash course into the field. I had dissected a rat in my first year at school, but I suppose that is not allowed any more.

Consequently, I have a great admiration for those who are successful in a field for which they have no formal qualifications.

Institutions are never perfect.
At one point, the Institute of Physics described me as a biologist, and the Institution of Biology described me as a physicist. How wonderful it was working in a field that the core disciplines disowned.

[Marc Berger]

With all respect to SPR they don't appear to have academic institutions that have been handing out graduate degrees in radiological protection for a century or so. Archaeology has Institutes and international schools that refer back to Royal societies of the 19th century.

[P Prentice]

Mr Wells.. a lot of Chartered Professional bodies normally require graduate qualifications for the mainstay of its membership qualification, the ifa don't seem to. Should a graduate archaeologist take them seriously? The ifa seems to have very few academic archaeologists as members.

except for those academic archaeologists that helped set it up

[Marc Berger]

....I am not sure who you refer to