The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues. By dreaming and building together in public, IA creates the conditions to shift culture and transform inequitable institutional and societal structures.
Reflecting on the importance of transitions – from political crises to global climate change, and personal identity to organizational transformation – the 2026 IA National Gathering invites participants to share stories, research, creative works, and community practices exploring the complex process of transitioning away from systems of fear and domination and towards restoring collective spirit.
Featured Image: Taller Arte Nuevo Amanecer (TANA) Archive
Following the 2024 election, the Creating Refuge Collaboratory (featuring participants from Bates, Bowdoin, Carleton, and Macalester Colleges) emerged as a collective effort to explore the ways in which civic and community engagement centers could facilitate intersectional spaces of community care, resiliency, and creative resistance for students and communities. Learn more in this blog post.
In the first episode of Gathering Whispers for this season, we talk to IA Managing Director, Stephanie Maroney and IA Faculty Director Erica Kohl-Arenas, who give us a sneak-peek at what we can expect to experience and learn at the 2026 IA National Gathering.
+ EP 1: A CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE MARONEY AND ERICA KOHL-ARENAS
AUGUST 13, 10am PST, ON ZOOM. In this back-to-school edition of the Digital Divestment Roundtable, Marguerite Mayhall (Art History, Kean University) and Ashwin Vaidya (Math/Physics, Montclair State University, IA Member Institution), will introduce us to their pedagogical practice of engaging students in a conversation around AI in the classroom through the lens of informed consent.
+ Gen AI in the Classroom: Tips for Engaging Students in AI Classroom Policy
We are pleased to share the Imagining America Annual Report for the 2025-2026 membership year. It has been a joy to build new and meaningful relationships with so many people, organizations, and places across the national network and we hope that you enjoy reading on for all that we have learned and accomplished in the past year.
Annual convening of public scholars, artists, designers, students, and cultural organizers addressing today’s pressing issues.
IA is proud to share that Pennsylvania State University is the next campus home for Imagining America, starting July 1, 2027. Learn more about this intentional cycle of transition for IA.
IA fosters vibrant networks of graduate and undergraduate students from our member institutions.
IA’s research initiatives and learning opportunities leverage the intellectual and creative capital that is the consortium’s greatest strength.
We envision a world of expansive social imagination, constructed by multiple ways of knowing, where people work together to nurture healthy, vibrant, and joyful communities.
The Imagining America consortium (IA) brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Working across institutional, disciplinary, and community divides, IA strengthens and promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change that inspires collective imagination, knowledge-making, and civic action on pressing public issues.
By dreaming and building together in public, IA creates the conditions to shift culture and transform inequitable institutional and societal structures.
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Funding has been provided by California Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
