Graduate Student Learning Outcomes

Master of Architecture (M.Arch)

Educational Goals and Outcomes

The purpose of the Master of Architecture program at the University of Minnesota is to prepare students for professional careers in architecture. The M.Arch degree is a professionally accredited program reviewed by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), and the accreditation criteria are aligned with outcomes that are essential to our program. Graduates typically find jobs in private architectural practices, but may also work in corporations, government agencies, community service organizations, or academic institutions. As a professionally accredited degree, the Master of Architecture program must demonstrate that each graduate possesses the knowledge and skills defined by conditions established by NAAB. For the purpose of accreditation, the program must demonstrate how its curricular structure, course learning objectives, students’ work, and/or other extracurricular activities address the eight Program Criteria (PC) and six Student Criteria (SC) described in Section 3 of the 2020 Conditions for Accreditation. Graduating students must demonstrate understanding or ability related to specific Student Criteria. The interconnected nature of these criteria and the role of self-assessment are outlined below.

Program and Student Criteria

These criteria seek to evaluate the outcomes of architecture programs and student work within their unique institutional, regional, national, international, and professional contexts, while encouraging innovative approaches to architecture education and professional preparation.

Program Criteria (PC) 

A program must demonstrate how its curriculum, structure, and other experiences address the following criteria:

• PC.1 Career Paths—How the program ensures that students understand the paths to becoming licensed as an architect in the United States and the range of available career opportunities that utilize the discipline’s skills and knowledge. 

• PC.2 Design—How the program instills in students the role of the design process in shaping the built environment and conveys the methods by which design processes integrate multiple factors, in different settings and scales of development, from buildings to cities. 

• PC.3 Ecological Knowledge and Responsibility—How the program instills in students a holistic understanding of the dynamic between built and natural environments, enabling future architects to mitigate climate change responsibly by leveraging ecological, advanced building performance, adaptation, and resilience principles in their work and advocacy activities. 

• PC.4 History and Theory—How the program ensures that students understand the histories and theories of architecture and urbanism, framed by diverse social, cultural, economic, and political forces, nationally and globally. 

• PC.5 Research and Innovation—How the program prepares students to engage and participate in architectural research to test and evaluate innovations in the field. 

• PC.6 Leadership and Collaboration—How the program ensures that students understand approaches to leadership in multidisciplinary teams, diverse stakeholder constituents, and dynamic physical and social contexts, and learn how to apply effective collaboration skills to solve complex problems.

• PC.7 Learning and Teaching Culture—How the program fosters and ensures a positive and respectful environment that encourages optimism, respect, sharing, engagement, and innovation among its faculty, students, administration, and staff. 

• PC.8 Social Equity and Inclusion—How the program furthers and deepens students' understanding of diverse cultural and social contexts and helps them translate that understanding into built environments that equitably support and include people of different backgrounds, resources, and abilities.

Student Criteria (SC): Student Learning Objectives and Outcomes 

A program must demonstrate how it addresses the following criteria through program curricula and other experiences, with an emphasis on the articulation of learning objectives and assessment.

SC.1-SC.4 are evaluated at the understanding level. 

• SC.1 Health, Safety, and Welfare in the Built Environment—How the program ensures that students understand the impact of the built environment on human health, safety, and welfare at multiple scales, from buildings to cities. 

• SC.2 Professional Practice—How the program ensures that students understand professional ethics, the regulatory requirements, the fundamental business processes relevant to architecture practice in the United States, and the forces influencing change in these subjects. 

• SC.3 Regulatory Context—How the program ensures that students understand the fundamental principles of life safety, land use, and current laws and regulations that apply to buildings and sites in the United States, and the evaluative process architects use to comply with those laws and regulations as part of a project. 

• SC.4 Technical Knowledge—How the program ensures that students understand the established and emerging systems, technologies, and assemblies of building construction, and the methods and criteria architects use to assess those technologies against the design, economics, and performance objectives of projects.

SC.5 and SC.6 will be evaluated at the ability level. Programs may design their curricula to satisfy these criteria via a single course or a combination of courses. 

• SC.5 Design Synthesis—How the program ensures that students develop the ability to make design decisions within architectural projects while demonstrating synthesis of user requirements, regulatory requirements, site conditions, and accessible design, and consideration of the measurable environmental impacts of their design decisions. 

• SC.6 Building Integration—How the program ensures that students develop the ability to make design decisions within architectural projects while demonstrating integration of building envelope systems and assemblies, structural systems, environmental control systems, life safety systems, and the measurable outcomes of building performance.

Assessment of Student Goals and Outcomes

Master of Architecture students demonstrate proficiency of architectural design processes by successfully completing a rigorous sequence of core studios, culminating in an endeavor called the Master’s Final Project (MFP). This pass/fail project (Plan C) may be produced individually or collaboratively, but in any case must demonstrate the ability to develop an independent research trajectory, synthesize existing literature and precedent knowledge, and make an original design contribution to the discipline.  Curricular preparation for the Master’s Final Project is delivered within a three-year, 90 credit degree composed of required design/representation, building technology, history/theory, and professional practice coursework. A grade average of B-, which is required for graduation, provides evidence of a student’s understanding and ability in the required program and student criteria.  The goals of professional education are shaped by four areas of focus that link the learning and teaching culture of the M.Arch program with the 2020 NAAB Conditions for Accreditation.

• Creating a stronger discipline through interdisciplinarity—This area of focus serves the connections between three primary program criteria: PC. 5: Research and Innovation, PC. 6: Leadership and Collaboration, and PC. 7: Learning and Teaching Culture. 

• Enhancing design school culture by empowering academic communities—This commitment/area of focus deepens our shared values of Design, Community Engagement, and Lifelong Learning, while linking PC. 2: Design, PC. 6: Leadership and Collaboration, and PC. 7: Learning and Teaching Culture. 

• Supporting reciprocity between thinking and making—This area of focus intertwines design values that are linked across SC. 5: Design Synthesis and SC. 6: Building Integration.

• Ensuring students’ ability to define their own modes of practice—This area of focus intertwines design values that complement the curricular roles of PC. 1: Career Paths and SC. 2: Professional Practice with the practice-specific opportunities of SC. 5: Design Synthesis.

The areas of focus outlined above define assessment methods among teaching teams, Program Directors, the Department Head, and most importantly students.  These methods of self-reflection define an evolving set of student learning objectives, including:

• Professional communication skills—Ability to write and speak effectively and use appropriate representational media with peers and with the general public.

• Design skills—Ability to raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret information, consider diverse points of view, reach well-reasoned conclusions.

• Investigative skills and applied research—Ability to gather, assess, record, and comparatively evaluate relevant information and performance in order to support conclusions related to a specific project or assignment.

• Architectural design skills—Ability to effectively use basic formal, organizational and environmental principles and the capacity of each to inform two- and three-dimensional design.

• Use of precedents—Ability to examine and comprehend the fundamental principles present in relevant precedents and to make informed choices regarding the incorporation of such principles into architecture and urban design projects.

Master of Science in Architecture (M.S.) + Master of Heritage Studies and Public History (M.HSPH)

Educational Goals

Specific goals vary by area, however, all M.S. AND M.HSPH students are expected to:

• Identify research topics, refine the scope of research questions, and develop parameters for independent or group research initiatives such as timelines, budgets, and resources.

• Conduct research and analysis appropriate for and relevant to architectural design and practice in their particular area. Depending upon this area, such research will require the ability to locate and make use of variety of qualitative and quantitative sources found in digital and analog repositories of scholarship and data. Knowledge of, or a familiarity with, the scholarly/professional literature about their area.

• Anticipate and plan to meet expectations for research projects dictated by the University, professional ethics, or employer, which may include formation of examination committees, issues related to proprietary information, and IRB approval for study of human subjects.

• Respect intellectual property through the documentation of prior scholarship and creative work using appropriate citations. This applies to images, which should typically have figure numbers, captions, and sources clearly identified.

• Communicate written and oral arguments that are deeply researched, convey the significance of the topic with respect to issues in the specific MS area, and are formatted in a manner appropriate to the project and audience.

Assessment

Oral presentations with graphic and/or written documentation are the most common means by which achievement of Student Learning Outcomes are assessed. Depending on the degree program and individual program plan, students follow any of the three options of final projects as defined by the Graduate School: Plan A, B and C. Students completing Plan B or C make a public presentation with a panel of reviewers. Feedback is given to the student by advisor(s) and the student is expected to revise before submitting the work. Work can take several forms, including but not limited to: written paper, professional report, design proposals, annotated digital tools, or analytical maps.

For those students completing a Plan A thesis, work outcome follows the Graduate School format for thesis. For both the Plan A thesis and Plan B project(s), the following process is used:

• Examining committee. The student’s thesis will be reviewed by an examining committee, which must consist of a minimum of three members: the thesis advisor, another member of the Department of Architecture’s Graduate Faculty, and a faculty member from the minor or related field. Non-faculty members, including practitioners with appropriate expertise, may serve as nonvoting members with approval of the Graduate School.

• Presentation and examination. Students will make a public presentation of their work. This will be followed by a final oral examination covering the issues raised, the area of concentration in architecture, and the related fields or minor.