On Becoming a People’s College: Placemaking as Hidden Curriculum

This research was originally presented as a chapter in the doctoral dissertation On Becoming a People’s College: An Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry (Ai) is a participatory approach to organizational change focused on an affirmative topic choice. The topic choice of the dissertation was equity, democracy, and justice at the selected site. This article shares the motivations and relevant characteristics of the chosen fieldwork site, De Anza College. Three categories of considerations for the role of place and placemaking within the institution’s hidden curriculum are described: institutional identities, organizational features, and resource scarcity. These characteristics are followed by a discussion of levers of change for enhancing the role of placemaking within the hidden curriculum: prefigurative politics, creativity, and the Anchor Institution approach.