School of the Alternative is a space where radical new ideas are born. We build and sustain a community of experimental learning where, each spring, artists learn, work, and live communally in Black Mountain, NC. SotA prioritizes being equitable and safe(r) for those most marginalized in institutional learning spaces.
We are launching a $25,000 fundraising campaign with hopes of making our 2022 session the most accessible yet. This means continuing our Black Equity scholarships, adding new scholarship opportunities, offering payments for faculty and staff, and an increased supply and resources budget to support a greater diversity of classes and structures for increased physical accessibility.
For the past 5 years, our budget has been built as a fully self-sustaining model. Tuition covers our most basic needs, like food and lodging; but the school relies fully on volunteer faculty and staff. Every year, we are awed and grateful at how much our volunteers give. However, depending on unpaid labor means that only those with resources and financial privilege are able to participate - which we know reinforces systemic privilege.
This model has served its purpose: it allowed us to keep tuition costs low while offering challenging and experimental classes and building a community that is both artist-supported and artist-supporting. But we are ready for the next phase. We know that now more than ever, it’s important that we remove as many barriers to entry as we can.
What’s exciting about this fundraiser is that we’re not asking for much money to run SotA. We could continue to hold sessions under our current tuition-funded model. What we’re asking for is help getting us to the next step in creating a space that is MORE inclusive MORE radical and MORE equitable. With this money we can grow beyond the volunteer model, double the # of scholarships offered, and offer our faculty a supply budget to meet their innovative needs.
This will dramatically increase access to SotA for our 2022 session and beyond. It will make the education we offer and the community we build more inclusive, demographically and intellectually diverse, and sustainable. We need your help to make this radical dream come true.
60% of the money raised would go towards paying our faculty and staff.
This means we can offer a weekly stipend of $275 for all faculty and staff, the first small step towards moving beyond the volunteer model.
20% will go towards additional scholarships.
This means we can double the number of scholarships offered. Right now, built into our budget we offer 12 full or partial scholarships, if we reach our goal we could offer 25 (!) scholarships over our 3-week session, including continuing to offer black equity scholarships.
12% will go towards additional supplies and resources.
This means we could host a greater diversity of classes, including those that require supplies beyond our current limited budget and supply donation pool.
And finally, 8% will go towards ensuring our next sessions can happen.
This will go straight into the deposit for our lodge for our next session.
About our Annual Sessions:
Faculty, staff, and students live communally in one lodge, and everyone performs some kind of work service. Instead of a traditional classroom environment, we support a collectively built and self-directed approach to learning which gives opportunity for all participants to learn and teach, where Faculty and staff attend classes, and students teach pop-up classes.
Our curriculum is built entirely from an open call of faculty proposals. SotA is an inter-generational space that cultivates learning and connection beyond traditional hierarchies around age, education, and social status, and classes often adapt in session to accommodate the participant’s needs.
Last summer we added 3 newBoard members , appointed a new Executive Director, and we formed an Advisory Committee. After a year off, filled with zoom classes and digital gatherings, we are, together, working towards holding our most accessible session yet in May of 2022. Our hope is that through this fundraising campaign, that future includes more scholarships, continued Black Equity scholarships, payments for faculty and staff, and an increased supply budget to support a greater diversity of classes.
Our Community values:
SotA is not only holding spaces for radical, communal learning, we aim to hold space, learn alongside, and listen deeply to folks who are traditionally silenced by higher education. We do this through deep listening and intentional, structured processes. This includes a living community agreement and our “point person” roles, in which leaders in the community hold space for feedback and support.
Since our first session, we have continued to build on and nurture our structures for small group, anonymous, and 1 on 1 support, and we have also added two new coordinator positions, specifically for supporting community members of color and those who are differently abled.
Much of SotA’s shape and pace has formed in relief of the restrictive and oppressive tendencies we’ve all experienced in institutional learning, and we create a different kind of experience.
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