Woodbury University in Burbank, California managed to get various university departments to work together constructively in a new School of Media, Culture and Design (MCD). After a first initiative that failed, SCM helped the various departments recognize their common interest in founding MCD.  

To remain competitive with other area schools, Woodbury University in Burbank, California tried without much success to form a new School of Media, Culture, and Design (MCD) by combining several disciplines such as communications, graphic design, fashion design, animation, and psychology using a traditional structure - led by a Dean. The Dean was unable to create cooperation among the various departments. Then, two years ago, they tried again, successfully this time, using a sociocratic structure (dubbed "dynamic governance" by the school). The school recently passed its regular accreditation audit. The auditors praised the school's governance systems as "unconventional and successful... worthy of study by other schools."

Blending interests
MCD solved the challenge of meeting both individual department needs and the need to cohere as a school by creating a general circle of department chairs and a form of "internal top circle" consisting of the Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, a school director elected for one year by the Senior Vice President and the general circle, an elected representative, and outsiders selected for their knowledge of the rest of the university or familiarity with the media, culture, and design industry, particularly in the greater Los Angeles area served by the school. "Thanks to the spirit of cooperation that these measures have supported among the faculty chairs, we are well on our way to establishing our first MCD interdisciplinary degree. We were never able to do that before," says Dr. Edward Clift, the current MCD School Director and Chair of the Communications Department of the school. Currently under consideration are ways to efficiently involve the faculty and students of the school.

Second Life
Also, Woodbury University is actively involved in Second Life, an online society within a 3D virtual world, where users can explore, build, socialize and participate in their own economy, an internet-based world with tens of thousands of users. Woodbury University owns an island in Second Life and is interested in exploring the use of "dynamic governance" in an environment in which people interact through the social environment they create with their virtual alter ego's called avatars.

http://mcd.woodbury.edu/