For those of you who weren't at the Agency meeting on Sept 28, we decided that we would take up the challenge offered by Barbara to help create a "signature" event for the Constellations to be held in Spring 2016. The basic goal of the event is to bring national/international attention to our constellations model here and to forge possible collaborations with scholars and others outside our university. We are clear that we don't want to do the standard keynote + conference panels, and that instead we want to put into practice what we are preaching here -- new models of collaboration and research practice, pedagogical innovation, and public engagement. Barbara's initial idea was to build on the question posed by Gretchen, WHAAM (why history of art and architecture matters). Some good discussion of this idea pro and con took place at the meeting. If I can offer my takeaway from that discussion, it was this: while we do need to make our work matter to people outside our subfield, discipline, and instittution, we also need to give those external constituencies some good reason to join us.
I have set up a forum to brainstorm and discuss this event. Go to forums in the navigation bar up above and you will find it listed. Only constellations registrants can see the forum for now.