Creative Intersections: Education, Media, and Cooperatives

Download the 2011 Institute Brochure/Poster 

Over 400 participants will converge in Ann Arbor, Michigan from November 4th - 6th to share ideas, learn new skills, and look at issues affecting the cooperative movement worldwide. Since 1977, NASCO's Cooperative Education & Training Institute has been widely recognized as one of the most important training and networking opportunities available to members, directors, staff and managers of housing cooperatives. The annual NASCO Institute is always a one-of-a-kind opportunity to network with hundreds of cooperative leaders and employers, to caucus about pressing issues, and to work on building an inclusive and accessible cooperative movement. 

The 2011 Cooperative Education and Training Institute will provide a space for cooperative members from all over Canada and the United States to explore the intersections of education and media with cooperatives. Education and media work in tandem: while the principles of democratic and popular education inform the dynamics of teaching and learning, media provides creative and accessible forms for exchanging knowledge, ideas, and information.

We will explore several threads that connect media, education, and cooperatives: How can cooperatives create and support media that is community owned and democratically controlled? What are ways to integrate media into cooperative education and grow our movement? This year we will engage with the media-making potential of last year's theme -mapping- while cultivating our roles as educators, media activists, artists, actors, allies, and last but not least, as "students of cooperation."

The Commons

Located at the central hub of Institute activity, The Commons serves as a space for networking, hanging out with friends, participating in skillshares, holding informal caucuses and meetings, relaxing, browsing the bookstores, and drinking coffee & tea. This year, the Commons will feature screen printing, a relaxation station, and a media lab. Cooperative and Community-Based organizations that share common visions with NASCO are invited to table at The Commons.  Please contact salam(at)nasco.coop for more information about tabling. 

Course Tracks

Cooperative Solutions for People-Driven Education and Media

Cooperatives have been working on innovative media-based education projects that facilitate networking and exchanging information, and have been successfully applied the cooperative model to media and education institutions. Reaching outward, we imagine the cooperative model's potential to transform mainstream systems of media and education into enterprises grounded in community ownership, democratic control, accessibility and justice, meanwhile identifying ways we can learn from and partner with media justice and democratic education movements.

The Art & Practice of Cooperative Education

These workshops build on the principles and practices of democratic and popular education, engaging us in what it means to teach, learn, lead, and practice cooperative education everyday. We will rethink and propose structures for both formal and informal education, utilize media as a vehicle for education, and share cooperative education tools. 

Airwaves to ‘Zines: Grassroots Media & Technology

Integrating media into cooperatively living and working encourages democracy, transparency, participation, and new literacy forms. Participants will practice hands-on learning while experimenting with low-tech media and technology forms such as stories, maps, stencils, audio, video, open source technology, community radio, and social media.

Building Blocks of Housing Co-ops

This course track is for cooperators wishing to orient themselves within housing co-ops as well as the broader cooperative movement. These workshops are ideal for anyone who hopes to leave NASCO Institute with some concrete tools and practices to apply at home.

Together We Know A Lot: Advanced Topics

This track offers a wealth of collective insight on advanced co-op workings like financial planning, member training, and major renovations. Workshops in this track will also examine community economic development as it relates to the cooperative model and explore other sectors in the North American cooperative movement.

Transformation Starts with Ourselves: Healthy Cooperative Communities

Our intersecting identities inform our experiences and perspectives and affect how we relate to the dynamic communities to which we belong. By mapping the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, ability, and class within ourselves and our communities, we can create healthy, just cooperative communities.

From Roots to Shoots: Developing New Co-ops

NASCO has pulled together a team of experts to walk future co-op founders through the process of starting a new housing co-op. Workshops in this series provide a comprehensive, step-by-step training program on the development process.

Please create an account on NASCO's Shared Resource Library to access handouts and resources from 2010 Institute.