AIAS Auburn Receives National Membership Honorable Mention

Auburn AIAS has received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 AIAS National Chapter Growth Challenge, recognizing the chapter’s accomplishment in increasing membership and participation last fall.

From May to December 2025, Auburn AIAS welcomed 43 new members, increasing the chapter’s membership to 124 members— in just seven months.

The National AIAS Membership Challenge works to connect more architecture students with a national network of peers through a pre-professional organization to grow academically, professionally and socially.

This award marks AIAS Auburn’s first major accomplishment on the national scale since the 2021–2022 school year, when AIAS Auburn co-hosted the South Quad Regional Conference with Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

The new Auburn members will participate in AIAS events across the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA), including weekly cookouts, monthly meetings, mentorship programs and annual events like Pumpkin Carve.

Advised by Assistant Professor Cait McCarthy, Auburn’s chapter of the pre-professional organization is headed by President Maddie Brockman, a fourth-year Architecture and Interior Architecture student.     The organization’s leadership— including Vice President of Internal Affairs Alanna Bilyeu, Vice President of External Affairs Myrna Jalkh, Treasurer Rylee Herndon and Secretary Camilla Stricklin—runs both peer mentoring and American Institute of Architects (AIA) professional mentorship programs.

“This award signals that all of the hard work that Auburn AIAS members have been putting into our organization over the past few years has been paying off,” Brockman said. “AIAS Auburn has worked tirelessly to provide exciting and impactful learning experiences in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture.”

In 2025, APLA’s most popular AIAS initiative was Freedom by Design (FBD), a volunteer design-build program that tackles projects around campus and throughout the larger community.

“Currently, they are working on the design and permitting for a student common space within Dudley Hall—something that has garnered a lot of excitement from Auburn students of all year levels,” Brockman said. “Increased participation in this program was a primary contributor to the massive increase in AIAS’ membership.”

Last fall, AIAS also launched a new Town Hall initiative within the Architecture program, during which AIAS leadership and APLA faculty have garnered student feedback on curriculum, tools and services and studio culture. The meetings resulted in a set of Learning Teaching Culture Guidelines that will provide a framework for openness, communication and respect.

Auburn AIAS was recognized at the annual AIAS FORUM conference, held in Denver in early January.