Laguna's Humanities Research Program Ventures to Downtown LA

TRIP PHOTOS

This year, Laguna’s Upper School is delighted to reboot the central components of the Urban Studies Program (2013-2020) within the Humanities Research Program. The January Downtown LA trip for the Humanities Research Program Foundations class (Grade 10 students) offered a warm-up for the HRP Urban Studies Trip to New York in March 2024. 

Both the January 2024 HRP DTLA trip and the upcoming Grade 9 Downtown Santa Barbara trip are based on social science practices of collaborative ethnography and observation – the study of people, cultures, and places. Students are asked to be participant-observers and consider what it means to walk, talk, look, and listen in a big city, and to grapple with big real-world questions. Both units are based on a cohort of Laguna teachers’ training in 2018 at The Community Works Summer Institute, a national program providing place-based experiential learning models for K-12 teachers. 

During their day in LA, Dr. Tidey and the HRP students were accompanied by Dean of Students Blake Dorfman, who has been Dr. Tidey’s collaborator and partner on previous trips to DTLA.. Throughout this unit, students researched Downtown LA, a complex mix of cultures, innovators, arts, businesses, civic organizations, architectural landmarks, and vulnerable populations. A site of gentrification and innovation in close proximity to Skid Row, the downtown area is a prime location for studying class divides, gentrification, and the juxtaposition between old and new developments. Key stops included the Broad, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Angels Flight Railway, Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building, and the Last Bookstore. The class ended with a walk through the LA Public Library and a late afternoon visit with architect Francie Moore (Dr. Tidey’s cousin) to tour the 19th floor offices of SmithGroup, a national architecture and engineering firm with 14 offices across the country, and discuss Moore’s role as Principal Architect in the LA office, where she leads teams in the design of university and college buildings.

“The trip evolved before our eyes on the day of travel as the winds of research shifted within two hours of walking into the Broad,” remarks Dr. Tidey. “Big issues of gentrification, homelessness, and urban renewal remained at the center of the travel experience, but the discovery of contemporary art in the museum that day spurred six students to change their research topic to artist studies. I saw the students falling in love with art.”

Evie Comis ‘26 experienced the city in a way she never had before and enjoyed the agency the students were given in the planning process and as the day unfolded. “Within our group, there was a kind and curious atmosphere between peers, an opportunity to advance our knowledge of (semi) local history and an excitement about taking our learning outside of the classroom,” she says. “But the most unique part of the experience was the fact that it was all of our own making. That day-trip was not only one with an expansive itinerary, but it was also the culmination of our own desires, hard work, and imagination.”

Stay tuned for the New York City trip recap and photos!