AIAS Vice President Brigid Callahan Visits Loyola Academy

10/19/2018

On Wednesday, October 17, American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) national Vice President Brigid Callahan paid a visit to Loyola Academy. The purpose of the visit was to meet Principal Charlie Heintz and Student Activities Director Melissa Krein, as well as the officers of the Loyola Academy chapter of AIAS including senior Andrew Langrill, the co-president of the chapter, junior Patrick Voigt, information technology officer, and senior Elizabeth Balentine, the chapter’s creative director.

Loyola Academy’s chapter of AIAS began in the year 2000 under the direction of then-senior Catherine McLaughlin ’01. Now in its eighteenth year, Loyola’s chapter is the oldest high school chapter in an organization that now comprises 250 colleges and universities and 30 high schools.

Ms. Callahan shared the six mission statements of the AIAS and explained the unique collateral relationship between the student-run organization, AIAS and its professional counterparts—the American Institute of Architecture (AIA) and the National Architecture Accreditation Board (NAAB).

In addition, she briefed the gathering on the new efforts sponsored by AIAS to control the student work environment to enhance the student’s role. She explained new initiatives such as payment for all student interns, the compilation of a graphic catalogue of all the architecture programs in the country and a new look at the student workload.

Ms. Callahan extended the invitation for the Loyola Academy chapter to return to the annual summer officers’ training conference called GrassRoots now that there are high school chapters in attendance. She mentioned to Langrill that the Loyola Academy officers will be asked to make a presentation in Washington, DC, about how to successfully run a chapter over nearly twenty years.

In addition, she shared information about the Midwest Quad of AIAS and how the high schools and colleges within this division are supervised by the AIAS Chapter at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Midwest Quad conducts seminars and workshops that benefit the schools within this division.

Ms. Callahan concluded her visit with a specific request of the Loyola Academy chapter: an invitation to join Freedom By Design, the AIAS arm of its community service branch. Langrill shared with the chapter’s related community service goal—to assist Principal Charlie Heintz with the renovation of the school cafeteria.

Mr. Jim Cleland is the AIAS faculty moderator for Loyola Academy. For questions, he can be reached at jcleland@loy.org.

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