Baby on Board
By Anzilla “Anzie” Gilmore
Licensed 2004

I attended Prairie View A&M University, an HBCU located 50 miles outside of Houston, Texas. HBCU’s have nurturing and support dyed in the wool. But what PVAMU’s School of Architecture (SOA) did not have was very many licensed architects on faculty, and not one black female architect to serve as a role model. So I graduated from PVAMU, bound for graduate school with the plan to follow in the footsteps of the most successful person I knew in architecture, the dean of our school, Dr. Ikhlas Sabouni. Dr. Sabouni or “Doc” as we called her then, was stylish, she held a Ph.D. in architecture and she was the boss. She had not taken the A.R.E. because she did not need to. In my eyes, neither did I. So I went to the University of Texas at Arlington and emerged a year and a half later with my master’s degree, the credential I needed to teach architecture.

After I graduated, I decided that I needed a little experience practicing architecture if I wanted to be a good professor. And since I had spent $50 signing up for IDP while at PVAMU, I figured it would not hurt to keep track of my hours. At some point between 1999 and 2001, I decided it probably would not hurt to take the ARE. I took my first exam in 2002 and failed. I took my second exam that same summer and failed. I took a third exam sometime in the Fall, and that’s right…I failed. It was at that point that I realized, I needed help! I started looking for workshops and study groups, anything that would help me pass this exam. I attended seminars and signed up to meet other people taking the exam. And that is what made the difference. I took the Norman Dorf seminar to help me with the graphics portion of the test (there were three graphics tests back then, two of which I had already failed). The first thing he told us in that workshop was, “forget everything you have learned about architecture in practice”. So I did that. And lo and behold, I passed my first exam in March 2003.

I found out I was pregnant with my daughter shortly thereafter. I decided then that I would take one exam every month until my daughter was born. I knew that if I did not get it done before she was born, I may not ever find the time to study again. I took the second and third graphics exams in April & May and passed. I took a structures workshop with David Thaddeus and found a group from that workshop to study with to take General Structures and Lateral Forces in June & July. Passed both! Although while taking Lateral Forces, at about 5 questions in, I started praying for the answers, and by the end, I am pretty sure I was just guessing. I then reached out to another group of people I met at another seminar I attended to start another study group for Mechanical & Electrical Systems, Materials & Methods, Construction Documents & Pre-Design.

Mechanical & Electrical scared me (A LOT) so I got off my schedule by one month. I took ME in September and I passed! I had already failed Materials & Method once, so I took it next in October. I passed! Two tests left, 8 months pregnant and then it was hard to find a testing center with available appointments.

I was able to study non-stop for Construction Documents because I was out on maternity leave. I read every AIA contract and studied every book NCARB suggested as study material. I took CD’s in early December and thankfully, I made it through the exam without having a baby on the testing center floor. And I passed that one too! One test left…but I ran out of time. The baby was born on December 23, 2003. And the ARE was introducing new questions as they prepared to roll out a new 3.1 version of the A.R.E.

On February 2, 2004, the first date I was able to schedule an exam, and the first time NCARB had ever given this version of Pre-Design, I sat for my final exam. I had passed 8 exams by this time. I was on a roll! But as I got deeper and deeper into this exam, I realized that I had not studied for this exam. I was totally unprepared for this exam. I kept looking at the top of the screen to make sure I was taking the right exam. Most of this exam included “test” questions that NCARB planned to roll out with their new version of the ARE. And I was their guinea pig. At least half of the exam I was taking that was supposed to be about Pre-Design was really about sustainability. Nothing I had studied in Ballast or even the books NCARB recommended for Pre-Design was on this exam. I was angry and disappointed, but I got through it. I said a prayer at the end and hit submit.

Now, what you may not know is, when NCARB releases new exams, they have to study the results of the new exam questions so they can properly score future exams. It is what they call “cut scores”. And my last exam was caught up in the cut scoring. That meant that I would not get my scores via snail mail in the normal 2 weeks. I would not get the results of my last exam until May. That’s right…MAY!

After three and a half months (that’s sixteen long weeks), I finally got my results. I PASSED!!! On May 21, 2004, I became the fifth black female in the state of Texas and the first in the city of Houston to be registered to practice architecture. I credit myself for helping any number of people that took ARE version 3.1 by helping to set the curve really low.

Prayer works!

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Image:
Baby on Board. Provided by author.