Study Architecture 
ProPEL ACSA Scholarly Programs Status Report
At ACSA’s April 7 Annual Business Meeting, President José Gámez reported on work accomplished over the past year to reset the organization’s member and scholarly programs following the Board’s decision in February 2025 to halt publication of the Journal of Architectural Education’s Fall 2026 issue.
ACSA hired the consulting firm Maverick Publishing Solutions in June 2025 to conduct an independent review, comparing ACSA’s editorial policies to established scholarly publishing standards and assessing the processes that led to the issue’s cancellation. Maverick examined JAE and ACSA policy documents, and held confidential interviews with ACSA leadership and members of the JAE editorial team. The report found that while ACSA followed its established policies for decision-making, existing frameworks were not sufficient for raising, assessing, or resolving concerns relating to editorial content, ethical questions, or research integrity issues.
Following the report, ACSA established an independent Special Committee of faculty and administrators who were not serving on the board to review ACSA’s scholarly programs and to deliver a confidential report with recommendations for changes to policies, processes, roles, and responsibilities. The Special Committee reviewed the Maverick Report and other ACSA documents, and they met with a higher education lawyer who had not previously advised the ACSA Board.
After six months of work, the Special Committee delivered a final report to the Board of Directors. Its co-chairs then met with the ACSA board on March 29. At the board’s request, the committee is working on an executive summary for the membership, which will be published in the next few weeks.
The ACSA board shares the Special Committee’s belief that ACSA can be a more inclusive and responsive membership organization whose commitment to shared values, ethical accountability, and transparent governance can support a diverse and rapidly evolving field. This includes welcoming discussion and publication of scholarship on difficult topics.
Gámez reviewed five actions the ACSA committee endorsed as a result of the final report.
1. Adopt a Code of Conduct that goes beyond the existing Code of Conduct for Events.
2. Adopt more fully and more visibly the standards of practice of the Committee on Publication Ethics, or COPE. This will align ACSA with global norms for handling misconduct, conflicts of interest, and editorial independence.
3. Establish an Ethics and Integrity Committee that operates between the ACSA Board of Directors and its journals and other peer-reviewed programs. This standing committee of experienced scholars will oversee ethical reviews grounded in COPE practices, the Code of Conduct, and other Board policies.
4. Create and publish procedures for managing the various forms of conflict that may arise in scholarly publishing. These procedures will mirror those used by other scholarly publishers and academic member associations, as well as COPE guidance.
5. Review and update editorial policies and practices for both journals, as well as for ACSA’s scholarly meetings. This includes making the role of double-blind peer review, which is a foundation for all ACSA scholarly activities, more transparent.
Gámez reported that the ACSA Board will reconstitute the JAE Editorial Board at a point when revised policies and practices are ready for implementation. ACSA will also continue using open calls for applications for journal editorial board members.
JAE issue 79.2, Educating Civic Architects, was published over the winter break. The 2026 JAE will come out as a double issue in the fall, under the theme The Future of Architectural Education. A call for submissions for the spring 2027 JAE issue is also in development.
In his concluding remarks, Gámez noted the Special Committee’s final report emphasized ACSA’s role as convener and advocate for the field, recommending numerous steps for ACSA to be more effective in serving members across the ecosystem of architectural education. This includes:
- Embracing the diversity of architectural programs and re-examining ACSA’s membership structure, which currently counts only programs accredited by NAAB and CACB as Full Members.
- Defining the common ground for architectural education by developing a “constitutional” document to clarify architecture’s educational identity and to provide a stable reference for schools navigating institutional and professional change.
- Committing to radical openness anchored in ethical responsibility and transparent governance processes.
ACSA plans to share the Special Committee’s executive summary of its report and recommendations to the membership in coming weeks.
