The College of
Meaning Production

The College is constituted by the work of its graduates. It does not exist apart from the studies completed within it; the website is its campus, and the campus is the sum of those studies. The College therefore produces itself, out of meaning, on a yearly cycle.

It teaches nothing. It instructs no one. The College does one thing the older institutions reserve for committees: it sanctions — it agrees to host a year of self-directed research and, at that research's completion, to recognize what was done.

Enrollment is open. Anyone may apply. No prior standing, affiliation, or credential is required or considered.

Admission, however, is not automatic. The College admits on the strength of a declared plan, and the plan is the only instruction the College gives: in judging whether to sanction the work, it tells the candidate what seriousness it expects.

The work admitted is any that constructs a structure of meaning and can be hosted or documented on the site. The College does not enumerate forms exhaustively, but recognizes, by way of example: interactive web experiences; physical art, photographed and written upon; museums of hometowns; screenplays and show bibles; web games; film; and works not yet named because their form has not yet been made.

Upon acceptance, the candidate is entered upon the Roll — listed by name, with the project titled or marked TBD, and otherwise undescribed. Candidacy is public; the work is sealed. The College guarantees that the reveal belongs to the candidate, to be timed within the year.

The College, for its part, is obligated to host the completed study and to recognize its completion. It will not chase the candidate, grade the work, or convene a committee over it. The public commitment of the Roll is the only mechanism of accountability: one finishes because one said one would, upon a site that shows one said it.

• TBDA name is entered; the project is committed but unnamed.
• TitledThe work declares itself by name; it remains sealed.
• ConferredThe project goes live and the question is answered. The row fills.

At the close of the year, the candidate sits a single examination of two parts. There is no correct answer; the candidate may answer as freely as they wish. The year of work is what gives the answer its cost.

Is meaning produced? How?

— the sole examination of the College

A candidate may answer that meaning is not produced — only arranged, simulated, or extracted — and pass, provided the second part is met: even refusal must describe a mechanism. The examination is the College's founding question handed to the graduate to ratify or refute. There is no way to answer it without professing.

Conferral consists of three acts, performed together: the project goes live upon the site; the candidate posts an answer to the examination; and both are hosted as the completed study — the project its evidence, the answer its argument.

At the moment the answer is posted, the College confers upon the candidate the standing of Professor of Meaning.

The faculty of the College is its graduates. Its alumni are its authority. The College holds no power that did not come from completing the work, and admits no professor it did not first make. Each conferral extends the campus by one study and the faculty by one Professor, and the site grows — not by permission granted from elsewhere, but by meaning produced from within.