Research

The motivating question for the Learning Alliance of innovative, progressive educators is:

What is the leading edge of progressive interdisciplinary graduate education and how we can manifest this in our thinking, practice and institutions?

The purpose of the Learning Alliance is to

Support radical collaboration, pedagogy and experiment in education;

Experiment in education, the arts and sciences in everyday life, and sustainability.

Establish a bank of leading educators who have built inspiring learning programs.

We explore the overarching question through close attention to the host school. At the first meeting December 2018 we used the prism of Dartington Trust’s radical experiment (dating back to the Bauhaus and The New School) with its radically prescient traditions of experiment in holistic education, the arts in everyday life, and sustainability. San Francisco Art Institute has agreed to host a follow-up event next year with attention to how its arts, ecology and international engagement can be sustained in the face of a booming technology industry.  And the New School / School for Public Engagement and CMU / Design School have indicated that they would like to host analogous program design summits.

The International Learning Alliance becomes a co-consultancy with partners benefiting from the intensive dialogue on progressive learning with the option of hosting an event to reflect on and catalyze the design of a program at the host institution.

Collaborators

Dartington Hall Trust UK: Alan Boldon / Director of Learning Innovation

ASU: Sha Xin Wei AME & Synthesis; Gaymon Bennett / SHPRS

Leonardo: Roger Malina / Executive Editor

MIT:  Gediminas and Nomeda Urbonas / Art, Culture and Technology

Carnegie Mellon University: Terry Irwin / Head of Design School

The New School / Schools of Public Engagement: Mary Watson / Executive Dean

U. New Mexico and UCross Foundation : Prof. Bill Gilbert

San Francisco Art Institute: Gordon Knox / President

Uppsala, Sweden: Jan van Boekel, Ewa Livmar / Centre for Environment and Development Studies