Certification

My thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts on certification
and recertification. Like Gary Frost, I would like to see more
resources spent on continuing education classes, rather than on a
certification process, and I do think that the graduate programs are
rigorous enough to be a form of certification. Of course, that
leaves the problem of what to do about conservators who did not
attend grad school....

The issue of recertification is even more complex. Currently, there
are very few continuing education classes and seminars available for
conservators, and both availability and geographic locations of
classes are limited. When the costs of transportation, hotels, etc.,
are added to the class fee, they become prohibitively expensive to
some conservators in private practice and to conservators whose
institutions are not funding such training. If one must be
recertified by taking classes or going to seminars/ professional
meetings, this may limit who can be recertified to those with the
finances and resources to do so. Only affluent conservators and
those employed by institutions that fund training will have an easy
time with this, and the process may screen out excellent
conservators with limited financial resources.

If we do have a recertification process, has anyone considered what
to do about the limited number of classes available to conservators,
and the limited number of students that can be accepted in each
class? My colleagues and I have applied for several courses but been
refused due to lack of room. Very frustrating!

Another problem is the limited subject matter of these courses--they
do not address many of the areas that conservators would like to
study for their own professional growth. Instead, for these areas,
we have to read what is published, consult with colleagues, do
testing, research and experimentation on mock-ups, and learn by
doing. We do get the information in order to do our jobs and grow
professionally, but not in a way that can be applied to
recertification. Professions that require coursework for
recertification also provide the courses so that people can take
them, and these classes are available locally and often enough that
the candidates can fulfill their educational requirements in a
reasonable and affordable manner. How is AIC going to be able to
afford to do this?

If the courses can't be provided, I think that recertification by
taking another test every few years would be a waste of time and
money. In this case, it's better not to have recertification. I do
not think we're ready for a certification process yet, but we're
even less ready for a recertification requirement.

Karen Dabney
Commonwealth Conservation Center


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:39
                Distributed: Tuesday, December 10, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-16-39-018
                                  ***