[game_edu] Education Membership and Chapters?

[Ian Schreiber]

I'm based in Columbus, where we have *mostly* students and educators and very few industry professionals, so our chapter has the opposite problem :)
   
  For other areas, I'd advocate NOT having a separate chapter for educators -- this would only serve to further distance academia from industry. Rather, give local chapters incentive to include nearby students and educators in their meetings and discussions.
   
  When I was in Boston, I gave a presentation at one IGDA meeting on building bridges between industry in academia. Not surprisingly, we had a fair number of students and educators who attended that meeting. In retrospect, my biggest mistake was in not strongly encouraging people to return for future meetings.
   
  As for institutional-level memberships, it sounds like a great idea to me, for the same reason as studio memberships. Student memberships are pretty valuable in that they become a resume bullet-point, allowing the student to promote themselves as being committed to the industry in a serious way. But individual memberships for educators are less compelling; what exactly does one gain, personally, by joining a trade organization if one just teaches? The most obvious benefits -- networking with other individuals in the field, for example -- can already be had for free. I didn't have to join the IGDA to sign up on this mailing list...
   
  For institutions, though, there are a lot of things the IGDA can offer. If nothing else, we can list them as member organizations on the official website, which may make a difference for students who are researching game degrees. Also, if you look at this SIG, most of our output (like the Curriculum Framework) applies more at the university level than the individual level.
   
  - Ian

"S. Gold" <goldfile at gmail.com> wrote:
  So I have been giving a lot of thought to an idea I had at GDC and wanted to get some feedback from the list to get their thoughts. This is very rough, but hope that I might be able to get some useful feedback to improve upon what it is we do. I must stress that this is just a feeler type of posting, not an action item.

As we are all far flung from coast to coast, continent to continent, it is rare, if ever we meet. When I went to Boston last year I found that there were over 90 educators working in games in one area or another – all in the same metro area. Now that is a lot of folks who have common interests. However there was a lack of network and rarely if ever did they know one another. The IGDA has chapters in some cities and even in those cities, not all necessarily cater to the needs of educators or even allow students. Now some schools have student chapters, however, those have no official ties to our SIG although we try to provide them with information. My thought, what if we create some sort of IGDA Education Chapter in areas that have more than one school? A way to unify, if not help to create more bridges of opportunity. I have no real formal suggestion for how to set these up. I also don't know if this is something that we as a group want to do. I guess I am throwing it out
 there to see if:
    
   there is a need   
   how it would differ from an actual IGDA chapter   
   what you want from having an actual education chapter   
   where are some of the areas that would benefit from creating a chapter (such as Boston or London or Sydney that have so many institutions in one metro area)


My other question, again, just an informal query. Would there be any benefit to creating Institutional Level Memberships. That is the institution would get the membership for all faculty, possibly students, etc... for a certain price. Very similar to the studio memberships they currently offer (http://www.igda.org/studios/affiliation.php). Of course, I then have to argue for the benefits of IGDA membership as an individual, since not all listserv members are currently members (plug to please join). As I see great value in being part of a professional organization. I am a true believer in the idea of community which is what I believe the individual cost of $48 USD is really about, supporting that network and infastructure, the listserv and forums, promoting games as good not evil, etc... However, would an institutional membership bennefit our universitites and colleges? Would they actually pay for them? Would this help solidfy and unify? It would definitely show our students
 how professionals act as a community and that is of great value. The IGDA is currently thinking of new ways to increase membership, creating different levels of access, I don't want educators finding that they are left out. Do you have any thoughts?

Looking forward to the discussion,

Susan


-- 
Susan Gold
goldfile at gmail.com

“In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom!” - J. G. Ballard
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