Taher Updates National Council for Architectural Registration Boards Curricula

News post submitted by Dr. Rima Taher. 

Dr. Rima Taher is a senior university lecturer at the Hillier College of Architecture & Design, at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and is a part-time instructor in the graduate program at the NJIT-Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Taher is considered an expert in the field of building design for wind forces, and she has a published book on this topic by McGraw Hill Education, ‘Building Design For Wind Forces’.

Taher recently signed an agreement with the National Council for Architectural Registration Boards, (NCARB) to provide a major update to its continuing education courses on “Wind Forces”. NCARB is a nonprofit organization made up of the architectural licensing boards of 55 US states and territories. It is a global leader in architectural regulation. It develops and administers national programs for architecture candidates pursuing licensure and helps licensed architects expand their career goals. Most US jurisdictions require that architects earn continuing education credits before each license renewal. NCARB has published continuing education guidelines and has its own “Continuum Education Program” that licensed architects can use to earn Learning Unit (LU) credits to update their professional skills and maintain licensing.

Taher is updating the NCARB continuing education courses on “Wind Forces” according to the latest ASCE 7-16 standard “Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures” published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). This ASCE-standard came out in 2017. The current structural chapters of the International Building Code (IBC 2018) are based on it. Taher was hired by NCARB in 2016 to provide a first major update of this extensive course material which consists of a 150-page document with quiz questions. The initial outdated course document was updated then to the ASCE 7-2010.

The NCARB course “Wind Forces” consists of five different parts with quiz questions that can be taken separately online. NCARB is currently offering all five parts of the existing course which can be found on its website.