Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life

Imagining America is a national consortium of colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design. Public scholarship joins serious intellectual endeavor with a commitment to public practice and public consequence. It includes:

• Scholarly and creative work jointly planned and carried out by university and community partners;
• Intellectual work that produces a public good;
• Artistic, critical, and historical work that contributes to public debates;
• Efforts to expand the place of public scholarship in higher education itself, including the development of new programs and research on the successes of such efforts.

Public scholarship in the arts and humanities integrates all the missions of higher education: research, teaching, service, and public engagement. Current projects include the Tenure Team Initiative on Public Scholarship, the Curriculum Project, and Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE).

"Read Between the Signs" Photo: Amara Geffen

Featured Program

Every two weeks, in this space, we feature a program at a member campus that exemplifies public scholarship in the arts, humanities and design.

Cornell Urban Scholars Program
The Cornell Urban Scholars Program (CUSP) is an exciting new undergraduate internship program that offers sophomores and juniors the opportunity to work with the most innovative non-profit organizations and municipal government agencies serving low-income children, families, and neighborhoods in New York City. One example of the partnerships conducted through CUSP is Facing History, in which undergraduates helped organize a student/family orientation and coordinated a week-long institute to help open a new school whose curriculum is infused with complex historical issues like the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Japanese Internment. For more on the Cornell Urban Scholars Programs, visit: Cornell Urban Scholars Program