The Marble Institute of America recently announced that the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has approved “Natural Stone Tile: An Overview” as a CEU course available to MIA members who are part of the MIA’s CEU Program. The MIA CEU Program helps participating MIA members connect with architects and design professionals by certifying them as approved providers of CEU courses. The MIA works to register these courses with the AIA and IDCEC (a consortium of interior design associations). “Natural Stone Tile: An Overview” is the 12^th such course to be recognized.

“Natural Stone Tile: An Overview” is a one-hour course that familiarizes design professionals with the resources available for installation methods and specifying standards for natural stone tile. The course reviews the characteristics of natural stone in order to explain how it may affect your project.

The learning objectives are as follows:

• Understand the basic stone types and methods of formation

• Gain an understanding of the key aspects of stone tile specification as introduced in the 2011-12 TCNA Handbook, ANSI  A 108/A118 and the MIA Dimension Stone Design Manual 7.2

• Understand how the intricacies of stone tile installation can impact your project

• Learn key differences between the installation of stone tile and ceramic/porcelain tile

Six months in development, the new course was developed by the MIA’s Stone Tile Presentation Committee.  The committee utilized feedback from a Coverings presentation on this topic conducted by Josh Levinson of Artistic Tile, and expanded the scope of the presentation to fit a CEU format. Several industry leaders were involved in the project, which included collaboration with TCNA (Tile Council of North America) to acquire images of methods discussed in the presentation. The new PowerPoint presentation also includes a hand-out specific to the presentation content.

“It provides insight to proper stone tile installation methods and really promotes setting the proper customer expectations,” said Committee Member Vincent Moiso.

“In order to meet the expectations of the end user, this new CEU strives to educate the market on the nuances of installing natural stone tiles, and differentiate its application from manmade products, at a time when these differences have been brought to the forefront by the inclusion of stone tile installation methods in the TCNA Handbook for Ceramic, Glass, and Stone Tile Installation,” added Levinson, who also serves as Committee Chair.

For more information on this particular course, or the MIA CEU program in general, please visit www.marble-institute.com/ceu or email ceuadministrator@marble-institute.com.