Introduction

Design Arts Seminars, Inc. (DAS) was founded in 1992 by the late Manuel León Ponce as a Florida-based provider of continuing education serving the needs of the Florida design community. A few years later, Design Arts Seminars, Inc. strarted serving the continuing education needs of Florida-Licensed architects and general building contractors.

For the past few years now, DAS has been expanding its client base and services into other locations such as Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Moreover, states where Mandatory Continuing Education (MCE) legislation is under consideration will be included in the service area as soon as these MCE laws are approved.

Marking its 10th anniversary in 2002, Design Arts Seminars, Inc. has served the continuing education needs of thousands of professionals nationwide and is more than ever committed to providing professionals around the country with the quality programs and the professionalism they have come to expect from us.

Accreditation

Our home study programs, seminars, getaway CE weekends and study abroad programs give you plenty of options to explore to comply with mandatory continuing education requirements. Regardless of the option you select, you can be sure that our programs benefit from the widest possible accreditation and approval. Indeed, DAS has been an approved provider of continuing education by the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation since 1992. DAS is also an AIA** registered provider as well as an IIDA (International Interior Design Association) industry member and a member of the Better Business Bureau. Locally, our programs are filed with each regulatory state board that allows us to file CE courses for pre-approval* (not all boards do, some rely on national organizations such as the AIA or the IDCEC.) At the national level, our programs are registered with the AIA (American Institute of Architects**) and filed with the IDCEC (Interior Design Continuing Education Council**.) This way, whether you hold a single or multiple licenses, we have it covered and you can take care of it all at once.

Completion: Reporting & Tracking

DAS Course offerings are styled with the practitioner in mind and are taught or written by carefully selected quality instructors who teach within their area of expertise. Participants who complete a course receive a certificate of completion as proof of their attendance and completion. This certificate bears the licensee's name, contact information, license number(s), the name of the programs that was completed, the name of the instructor and provider along with the number of applicable CE credits. This certificate is signed by the instructor & the licensee and is made in three copies. One copy is meant to be sent to your local board - if requested - the second copy is meant to be kept be the licensee for at least four years for audit pruposes and the third copy is kept by our office permanently so that we may provide you with additional copies if you misplace yours or so that we may assist you in case of audit. In addition to receiving this certificate, participants who attend one of our semianrs or study travel programs will have to sign three attendance rosters (typically sign in and sign out rosters plus a third one randomly passed during the program.) The sign in process also includes providing DAS' staff with proper identification (Picture ID) and wallet-size license card. After a program is over with, DAS reports attendance/credits to the professional origanizations and boards that require it. At any point in time you or your local board can contact us to verify how many continuing educaton credits were earned by a licensee who attended program(s) sponsored by Design Arts Seminars, Inc. (please bear in mind that our database only tracks CE credits earned by taking our programs and not those earned by attending programs sponsored by other providers.)

Thank you very much for your interest in our programs, we highly value your feedback, please feel free to contact us with any questions, concerns or suggestions you may have.

* Filing a course for approval means that a proposed course is submitted to a local board or a national organization for review, and, if approved, is assigned a course approval number to identify it from other courses (please note that not all local boards assign a course approval number, some boards keep track of approved courses using the course title/provider). Once approved, a course may be offered and marketed to architects, interior designers, or building contractors. A course may be developed and approved for only one category of professionals, such as interior designers, or it may be approved for two or three of the categories of professionals for which DAS serves as a provider of continuing education.

** AIA (American Institute of Architects) and IDCEC (Interior Design Continuing Education Council) are both nationally recognized professional organizations. Part of their role is to review or allow the registration of continuing education programs. IDCEC-approved and AIA-registered courses are either automatically accepted for CE credits OR are regarded favorably by states with mandatory continuing education requirements but without pre-approval procedures. As always, final discretion is up to your local board.