The Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
LASA has been active since the summer of 2012. Our inaugural class of 20 high school juniors, one high school intern, two college interns, and seven high school teachers has met in a summer intensive Los Angeles history and culture seminar at The Huntington Library, and we've met one Saturday a month since then. Each Saturday session is focused on a different "node" of regional infrastructure. The day usually begins with a speaker and discussion, and then the LASA group goes into the field and to various sites which fit that day's themes. Our investigation of water started with a history overview of regional water development -- with rare documents -- and we then went to the dispersal facility for Colorado River water coming into the Metropolitan Water District system. Our business investigation took us to a private aerospace manufacturing facility, in business for 57 years, in Glendale, and a tour with that company's chief technologist. We ended that day with a discussion with Idealab executives and entrepreneurs. Our law enforcement day featured a morning with Connie Rice of the Advancement Project (we all read her book on the LAPD), and an afternoon tour with LAPD leaders of the new station and the regional 911 call center; we ended the day with a tour of SWAT team equipment and vehicles. For our investigation of regional transit and transit history, we began our day with seminars by experts from The Getty and the Automobile Club of Southern California on the history of automobiles, freeways, and railroads in the region. Following an on-foot journey from LAPL to Union Station, we met with the lead architectural design team tasked with re-imagining Union Station in the urban fabric of downtown (a stop at the Bradbury Building completed that day). A more recent investigation of the entertainment landscape of Los Angeles took us to AEG's Staples Center, the GRAMMY Museum, the Disney Concert Hall, and an end-of-the-day Bunker Hill discussion with the architecture critic of the Los Angeles Times.
We believe our LASA students are getting to know the region, getting to know one another, and beginning to build lasting ties to their home and one another through LASA's commitment to fostering engaged civic participation and civic education. We believe that we are off to a great start.
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1 Submitted Idea
- 2013 Grants Challenge
The Los Angeles Service Academy
The Los Angeles Service Academy (LASA) begins with questions. How does a city run? How does a vast metropolitan region like Los Angeles work? Which institutions are responsible for moving water, people, food, and power from points A to points Z? How are such agencies funded? Who runs them? How can neighborhoods be made more livable? What does an elected official do all day? What role do cultural institutions play in the life of Los Angeles? What about businesses and non-profits? What are the potential career paths for young people interested in civic, civil, and public service in the Los Angeles Basin? These are among the thousands of questions that students have about the city and region in which they live. There are a million more that they would have if they knew more about place, region, and history.
Designed as a supplement to the regular school year, LASA provides an intensive introduction to the infrastructure and institutions of greater Los Angeles for high school juniors who have expressed an interest in public, civic, and civil service. Participants gain the experience and knowledge necessary to better understand the intricacies – infrastructural, historical, political, economic, and otherwise – of the region in which they live, and build lasting bonds of friendship, camaraderie, and work experience with a diverse group of peers. Students who successfully complete the program during the junior year are placed in internships during their senior year, and will receive assistance and mentoring in the college application process.
Social connectedness is at the very heart of LASA’s mission. Our hope is that LASA will change the lives and career paths of hundreds of high school students in the region and will become an agent of change and community building across the Los Angeles basin. Throughout the year, LASA places particular emphasis on making certain that participants get to know one another personally, become familiar with one another’s region and/or neighborhood, and gain an appreciation for one another’s goals while participating in LASA (and beyond).
Currently in its first full year of operation, LASA brings together a diverse and select group of 20-25 students and 6-8 high school teachers from across the Los Angeles basin; 80% of the student participants are from public schools. The students begin their examination of Los Angeles during an intense four-day Summer Institute (scheduled for July 29th- August 1 in 2013). The summer program will be followed by once-a-month sessions on Saturdays from September through May. Depending on the topic on a given day, students will gather in the morning at the Huntington Library or at the Central Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Each session will focus on a particular theme or module and will be guided by experts on the given topic. In 2013-2014, the topics will include water, transportation, business, local and county governance, business, museums and cultural institutions, sports and entertainment, downtown, the LA River, police and criminal justice, food and housing, and the harbor complex.
Utilizing the astonishing archival resources of the Huntington Library and the Los Angeles Public Library, LASA will teach students about the historical growth of Los Angeles from the mid-nineteenth century forward. We will work from shared seminar readings (“homework” will be kept to a minimum), draw archival resources and personnel into our discussions, and build a collaborative working knowledge of Los Angeles history.
Our seminars will be but step one of a two-step process as our work “in the classroom” will be supplemented by fieldwork. For example, our investigation of the history of Los Angeles water resources and water engineering will start from in-depth study of regional water history, hydrology, and the many interfaces between water history and water politics. On that same afternoon, LASA will visit one or more key water facilities in order to have first-hand and practical knowledge as to contemporary water issues in the greater Los Angeles Basin. During the past year, for instance, and again with reference to water, LASA visited the Metropolitan Water District’s Weymouth Treatment Plant in Azusa and the San Gabriel Dam. Future site visits might include Hansen Dam or the LADWP’s Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant. In all site visits, LASA participants meet with key personnel who are in a position to contribute to our discussions and investigations.
The academic and investigative part of LASA takes place during the junior year. For those students who faithfully attend and take part in the required number of monthly meetings, LASA will facilitate internships during the senior year in collaboration with Leadership LA, the non-profit arm of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, whose alumni work in agencies and institutions across the entire region.