University College (Creative Commons)

February 2024

Universities were born in the Middle Ages as cooperatives of faculty or students. Today, however, “cooperative education” stands for educational establishments where the students alternate between academic semesters and semesters working in the field through internships or paid positions in their industries. There are some cooperative universities that focus the curriculum on learning about worker and other cooperatives–like the Cooperative University of Colombia, the Co-operative University of Kenya, and the Mondragon University Cooperative University. But what would it take to create a liberal arts cooperative university structured as a cooperative? This is the question we will explore in this session of Coöperism 13/13!