NMSU Announces 2025 IA National Gathering to the Paso del Norte Community

National Imagining America Gathering at NMSU in October, first time in the Borderlands

More than 400 scholars, students and community members will converge at New Mexico State University Oct. 3-5 for the 25th anniversary of the Imagining America (IA) National Gathering.

Imagining America is a national consortium of colleges and universities that promotes public scholarship and practice in the arts, humanities and design to foster a more just and equitable society.

The theme for this year’s gathering is “Providing Passage: Practicing the Worlds We Want,” which celebrates and conjures passages of all types and the life-sustaining ecological, physical, intellectual and spiritual passages that artists, organizers and scholars provide as a way forward in these turbulent times.

“The topic resonates deeply with me, as president of an institution of higher learning and as a human being. In New Mexico, we are particularly close to the paradoxes that our state’s luscious beauty and challenging aridity, as well as fraught but rich cultural encounters along imaginary and real frontiers, engender in us. And today, even as the state has invested heavily to provide passage for younger and older generations into more affordable and novel educational opportunities, our educational and emotional landscape has been disrupted by seismic changes.”

Valerio Ferme

President, New Mexico State University