Membership

Membership informs your work, connects you with your colleagues, and advances your career. Share knowledge, celebrate accomplishment, and lead the field.

Membership

Application

Start the application and save your information at your discretion before finalizing and submitting for review.

Read each of these sections below before applying:

Application Parts
Review Process
Review Materials

See form for more details.

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Parts

Contact Information: Applicants will have this pre-filled in from their AIC profile. Applicants should verify the information listed.
Professional Background: Applicants will need to download and then upload a template where you list your formal education, other related training and education, and professional experience).
Examples of Work: Applicants must submit at least 4 examples of their work which shows evidence of sustained high-quality professional skills and ethical behavior that adheres to the AIC Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice. Evidence may include: recent examination forms; proposed and completed treatment forms; reports of scientific investigations; lecture materials; planning documents; survey reports, etc.
Research and Scholarship: Applicants must sumbit an example of their work that demonstrates that they have participated in an exchange of ideas regarding methods, materials and philosophy of conservation through publications, presentations at annual meetings and personal contacts with colleagues.
Essay: Applicants must include an essay on why becoming a fellow of AIC is meaningful to them.
Sponsors: Applicants must be sponsored by five (5) members with Fellow status who are personally acquainted with and knowledgeable about their work. This knowledge may come from personal work experience, collaboration on committees, portfolio review, and/or review of the completed Fellow application.

Process

Submission
Staff forwards finalized applications to the Membership Committee.
Review & Recommendation
The chair, a member within your cited specialty, and another member selected at random will review your application. Each reviewer gives a recommendation: recommend approval, recommend discussion, or recommend to not approve. Applications recommended for approval by all reviewers are approved without further discussion.
Discussion
The committee discusses the remaining applications at a meeting. The specialty reviewer presents the application to the full committee, which provides additional assessment. The committee approves the application if the discussion satisfactorily addresses all their questions/concerns.
Deferment & Secondary Review
If questions/concerns remain, the committee may ask sponsors or applicants to provide additional information. Staff will then notify the applicant about the applicant's pending status and hold the application until the next review cycle. If after a review of the additional information, a majority of the committee cannot agree on an application, the board liaison and the chair will identify three adjunct reviewers to assess the application and provide recommendations. If the three recommendations are not in agreement, the committee will decline the application.
Notification
Staff will inform applicants of the committee's decision (approximately a month after deadline) and mail a frameable certificate in the following weeks. The committee provides declined applicants with feedback and guidance for resubmitting their application.

New Membership Review Committee Charge

This document outlines the purpose of the Membership Committee, its composition and rotation, and its responsibilities. It was adopted by the AIC Board in March 2017.

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PDF, 91.50 KB
Membership Review Committee Guidelines

The Membership Review Committee reviews applications on how they show appropriate decision-making processes and compliance to the AIC Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice. This document sets forth the guidelines the committee uses when reviewing the applicant's professional background, examples of work, essay and sponsor letters. The AIC Board approved these guidelines in March 2017.

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PDF, 395.57 KB
Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice

This document sets forth the principles that guide conservation professionals and others who are involved in the care of cultural property. This core document grew out the Murray Pease Report (on standards and priactice), published in 1963, and later Code of Ethics for Art Conservators (1967). Combined and revised in 1979 into two parts, the document was then amended in 1985 to reflect additions to the AIC Bylaws on reporting, investigating, reviewing, and appealing violations. From 1985-93, they were simplified, subjected to comparative analysis, organized topically, and related to other codes in conservation and other professions. They were adopted by AIC's voting membership in 1994.

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PDF, 167.88 KB
Commentaries to the Guidelines

Commentaries to the Guidelines for Practice were designed to amplify and define current accepted practice for each of the Guidelines while accommodating the individual needs of each area of professional specialization, and as well, allowing for future growth and change in practice through a simplified amendment process. The were first drafted in 1995, approved in 2001, and later amended in 2008 (for the transition to digital documentation).

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PDF, 237.84 KB
Defining the Conservator: Essential Competencies

In 2000, the AIC Board established the Qualifications Task Force to define the essential areas of knowledge and skills that characterize the conservator. This document outlines twelve areas of competency for conservators: including terminology, scientific principles and methods, examination methods, documentation, and treatment, among others (May 2003).

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PDF, 177.54 KB
Requisite Competencies for Conservation Technicians and Collection Care Specialists

In 1994, in recognition of the importance of the role that technicians play in the field of conservation, the AIC Board established the Collections Care Task Force (CCTF) to define and clarify the role of technicians in conservation practice. This document outlines the skills and knowledge required for 19 identified tasks at three levels of competency (June 2005).

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PDF, 1.31 MB