IfA - A Chartered Institute

[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.