Member Benefits

IA National Gathering

This three-day immersive experience engages public scholars, artists, designers, students, cultural organizers, and members of the general public in collaborative learning, making, dreaming, dialogue, and problem-solving. Located in a different member institution region each year, the IA National Gathering provides a space for participants to connect with one another and to experience and strategize on how the arts, humanities, design, and cultural organizing can be leveraged towards transformative learning and action. Members receive one free conference registration and discounted registration fees for students, faculty, and staff.

Leadership Forum

Institutional leaders of IA member campuses are invited to participate in the annual IA Leadership Forum, which takes place at the annual National Gathering. The Forum provides institutional leaders a space to engage in critical analysis of leadership challenges and opportunities to devise collective strategies to better support public and creative scholarship.

Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Fellowship

The PAGE Fellowship is a national, interdisciplinary community of publicly-engaged graduate students engaged in public humanities, arts, and design scholarship and creative practice. PAGE enhances the practice and pedagogy of public scholarship and provides peer support, career networking, and opportunities for collaborative knowledge production. Graduate students from member campuses are eligible to apply for the PAGE Fellowship on an annual basis.

Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellowship

The IA/JGS Fellowship aims to elevate photography and digital media as pathways for undergraduate students to pursue their careers and to make a difference in their communities. JGS fellows commit to a year-long learning exchange that includes tuition support, financial support for a community project, and opportunities for professional development. Undergraduate students from member campuses are eligible to apply for the JGS Fellowship on an annual basis.

Research Initiatives and Collaboratories

IA’s action research portfolio includes Equitable Food Futures with Sipp Culture to activate agri (cultural) imaginations towards equitable, thriving food futures, and the Leading and Learning Initiative (LLI), which documents challenges and successful practices to shift campus culture in support of public and activist scholarship. Members are invited to participate in IA’s research collaboratories, which have long been part of IA’s work to connect members across the IA consortium in the production of public knowledge and collective imagination through collaborative research and experimentation. Six current projects join the ongoing work of Assessing the Practices of Public Scholarship (APPS) who create values-based evaluation frameworks for assessing the impact, process, and relationships of public scholarship and campus-community engagement projects, and the Collective of Publicly Engaged Designers (CoPED) who convene leading design thinkers and doers to reflect upon and assert the importance of design in developing innovative strategies for public engagement.

Webinars and Virtual Convenings

IA regularly organizes virtual convenings to provide accessible, year-round networking and learning opportunities. The Teaching and Learning Circle (TLC) webinar series facilitates conversations, learning, and resource sharing on critical topics within the IA consortium. IA Study Groups provide spaces for peer study and connection. Meet IA sessions help orient prospective, new, or current members to the IA network, and other information sessions provide insight into specific IA programs and initiatives. Webinars are free for members, and we welcome member proposals for future topics.

Mail Art Project

The Mail Art Project is an annual opportunity for IA members to engage in important topics and issues through shared creative art making and reflection. Themes are drawn from IA’s National Gatherings and include waterways and movements, rituals of repair and renewal, and radical reckoning for collective change. This is a free, members-only program.

Member and Regional Organizing

Supported by IA staff and the IA National Advisory Board, member focused and regional events offer scholars, students, artists, designers, and community organizers opportunities to explore the theory and practice of public scholarship and cultural organizing, discuss pressing issues impacting member campuses and regions, and foster a peer support network. Members have access to resources to support organizing on their own campus, including an Organize Your IA Member Campus toolkit, as well as multi-campus IA networks in their regions.

National Spotlight

IA promotes public scholarship, cultural organizing, and campus change by lifting up the stories of our members through a number of platforms, including: the IAStoryShare and IA Hubbub podcasts and featured member spotlights in our monthly newsletters and social media. Members are invited to submit news, job postings, and other stories at any time.

Peer Learning Tools

The Public Scholar Conversation Cards and the Public Scholar Imagination Guide are pedagogical tools inspired by the findings from IA action research projects. The card deck is designed to spark conversation and deepen understanding about the contributions and struggles of public, engaged, and activist artists, designers, and scholars. The Imagination Guide is an interactive workbook that provides reflection, action, and imagination tools for anyone trying to make the university a more hospitable, caring, and creative place to nurture public, engaged, and activist scholarship, art, and design. IA also offers tools for facilitating Story Circles and on specific topics following IA events.

Publications

PUBLIC: A Journal of Imagining America is an innovative peer- reviewed, multimedia e-journal that features art, scholarship, and dialogue at the intersections of the humanities, arts, and design in public life. The digital archive is available to view; we are not currently accepting submissions. The relaunched Foreseeable Futures position paper series shares the work of culture keepers and thinkers, in dialogue with respondents from the IA network.

For questions on benefits and membership inquiries please contact us at connect@imaginingamerica.org.