Imagining America (Organization)

A national consortium of universities and cultural institutions dedicated to supporting public work in the arts, humanities, and design. From 2000 to 2007 Imagining America was hosted at the University of Michigan and was directed by Julie Ellison. In 2007 hosting activities were transferred to Syracuse.

Imagining America (IA) began in March 1999, as a partner of the White House Millennium Council. IA's inaugural White House conference produced collective support for a community of action made up of university presidents, faculty artists, scholars, and community cultural leaders. In 2001, IA became a consortium of colleges and universities that grew to 70 consortium members by 2007. IA was based at the University of Michigan from 2000 to 2007, where it reported to the Office of the Vice President of Research. The program was funded from three sources: fees paid by member colleges and universities; support from several offices at the University of Michigan, in the form of both recurring and one-time-only allotments; and external grants. During this time Julie Ellison, a faculty member of the University of Michigan, was the IA director. "The End of the Beginning" report outlines the first two years of IA's founding and growth. Since then the program has developed multiple projects and initiatives such as the "Tenure Team Initiative" the "Publicly Active Graduate Education" (PAGE) program and many others. As of July 1st 2007, IA moved to Syracuse University, its new host university.

Though the University of Michigan no longer supports the IA website, researchers can access many version of the site at the Internet Archive using the following URL: http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.ia.umich.edu. The following link is the organization's current website: http://www.imaginingamerica.org/