EMPOWERED STUDENTS TRANSFORMING COLLEGES: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AS AN EQUITY STRATEGY

Abstract

This paper argues that students can be key actors in work done to promote institutional equity. It explores work done at De Anza College, a community College in California, to promote student voice in its work toward institutional transformation. Grounded in the work of Paolo Freire, the paper argues that students have a unique ability to diagnose the barriers they face in trying to flourish at colleges and universities. Further, having students engaged in this work can help with a key goal of many institutions: developing their civic capacity. With a move from a traditional to a transformative model of civic engagement in higher education, students can become co-owners of the educational process. Instead of treating students as oppressed people needing colonization (Freire, 1973), higher education can decolonize by supporting the development of students’ sense of self, as well as the skills necessary to be agents charting their own destinies (Espinoza-Gonzalez, French, Gallardo, Glemaker, Marsura, & Thaw, 2014). It raises questions about what would be needed for students to be powerful members of our shared governance processes, and shows how at De Anza College an outsider approach to social transformation has proven to be more effective than an insider approach that is based in shared governance.