Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin school of architecture faces accreditation loss

Eighty-two years after its founding by its storied namesake, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture is currently at risk of losing its accreditation.

According to Archdaily, the school no longer meets the revised requirements by the Higher Learning Commission, a non-profit group whose approval is mandatory for the National Architectural Accrediting Board's accreditation process.

The HLC by-laws were revised in 2012 so that colleges would require accreditation organizations other than the sponsoring one to accredit them.

The Frank Lloyd Wright School is currently funded as part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Archdaily reports, which supports both of the school’s campuses and preserves an archive of Wrights work. Under the revised by-law, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture would need to file for incorporation as an institution with a primary purpose of offering higher education.

As of now, the school, located at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Taliesin in Spring Green, Wis., will retain its accreditation through 2017, but it must find an accredited institution to partner before then to offer an advanced architecture degree and maintain accreditation, USA Today reports.

“I’m disappointed. I’m frustrated,” the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s president, Sean Malone, told USA Today. “That said, I’m not worried about there not being any interest in a partnership.”

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