ImagineU Online "Workshop" Courses

These are the classes that we are currently offering at ImagineU. They're short and sweet (about 4 weeks long each), and a chance for imaginal learners to taste and dabble and get your imaginal tootsies wet in this particular ocean without having to make a longterm commitment. We're experimenting with formats, exploring options, and building a vocabulary of what works for adult distance learners.

ImagineU Friends Forums

The Friends Forums are the next format we'll be exploring at ImagineU. Each short semester, in addition to an ever-growing array of fee courses for you to choose from, we'll also be offering a different taste of imaginal learning. Friends Forums will be free (the only cost of admission is that you bring a friend with you), and will be a combination of live chats, forum conversations, and conference calls (and maybe, when we get really daring, podcasts -- ooh, video!) with Imaginal Activists who will guide us in dialogues about cultural issues, ideas, challenges, and solutions that need imaginative approaches.

We've decided to use this friend's format for a couple of reasons. First, we're playing with what makes distance learning works, and are interested in finding innovative (and sometimes totally low tech) ways of blurring the lines between virtual and live connections. We figure if you talk a friend into joining into the conversation, you'll have an actual face and warm body to connect with about these ideas. So, you'll have the best of both worlds -- community that spans the globe electronically, and someone you already know with whom you can continue to bring these ideas to life. And, second, we figure that if we offer you an interesting experience at no cost, you'll be willing to help us spread the word by telling friends around you.

ImagineU Hermes Project

Our first organized curriculum under development is the Hermes Project. This will be a certification program for imaginal activists from a variety of disciplines to not only work their creative ideas, but also to build the awareness and skills they need to succeed out there in the cruel world. Many people working creatively (whether they're working in the arts, in education, in community visioning, or expectation breaking) really struggle with the process of getting their work noticed and supported. We feel that what they bring to their communities, be they local, national, or anywhere in between, is too important to get lost to a lack of resources. So this program is designed to help them figure out what they need to do to make the impact they want to make.

Why Hermes? Because, archetypally, most creative educations touch upon the Apollonian discipline and the Dionysian chaos of creativity. What they forget, however, is that there is another archetype for creativity and innovation -- in the Greek pantheon, this archetype is Hermes. God of merchants as well as thieves, of commerce, and of quicksilver imagination, Hermes brings an awareness of the interaction between imagination and the commercial world.

ImagineU Masters in Imaginal Studies

Ultimately, our goal is to create a Master of Arts degree in Imaginal Studies, with an emphasis in imaginal activism. As we're offering our first learning experiences, we will be developing this curriculum and pursuing academic accreditation. This will be a cross-discipline degree, open to people who are working imaginally in a variety of careers, professions, and disciplines, with imagination as the glue that holds the curriculum together. We're planning on helping people to change the world. (No small goals here!)