Priorities for the Future

2024–2026 Strategic Plan

As NAAB works to achieve the priorities established together with the Collateral Organizations in the 2024–2026 Strategic Plan, we will focus on embracing an outcome-based evaluation model while promoting diversity, innovation, stakeholder engagement, and organizational sustainability. All of this is in service to NAAB’s core mission: assuring quality in professional architecture education. In order to accomplish the shared priorities, NAAB anticipates increasing its services to programs and providing additional support to its volunteer evaluators with the help of additional accreditation staff.

Even before COVID-19, NAAB was conducting more of its accreditation work via remote practices, including required digital submissions and expanded web-based trainings, which together reduce the time evaluation teams spend “on the ground.” As of March 2022, all of NAAB’s full-time staff work remotely, eliminating the need for a physical office.

These and other efficiencies, combined with strong financial stewardship, have provided NAAB with strategic reserves that will enable the organization to implement several bold programmatic priorities established in the 2024–2026 Strategic Plan, including: 

Accreditation Process

Manage the accreditation process in a consistent and effective manner. Provide support to accredited program staff, staff of programs seeking accreditation, and visiting team members (and other volunteers). Leverage information technology and other accreditation resources to improve responsiveness and to facilitate interactions.

Accreditation Team Pool

Expand the team pool by implementing a public call for team pool nominations, in addition to the nominations from the collaterals.

Volunteer Management

Maintain a cadre of diverse, trained subject matter experts prepared to effectively evaluate programs’ compliance with NAAB Conditions for Accreditation.

Learning Management

Expand NAAB’s training program using multiple modalities to provide programs and volunteers with opportunities to gain knowledge and skills to effectively engage with the accreditation process in their various roles.

Impacts of the Conditions & Procedures

Sustain a process of continuous improvement by assessing the impact of the 2020 Conditions and Procedures on the accreditation process and using the results to identify areas for improvement.