Professor of Anthropology Bonnie Urciuoli led a discussion, "Imagining the Campus Community," for the weekly Think Tank, sponsored by the Levitt Center.
She writes, "Planning a community presupposes that forms of sociality and citizenship can be designed and selected for, since the community ideal revolves around some idealized form of social being. Contemporary college communities are increasingly motivated to engage in this kind of planning, which raises interesting questions about how students are being "imagined" as community members. Let me come right out and say here that I am no expert in the planned community literature. I have been reading around some, particularly about Celebration FL (the Disney Corporation venture), and I am struck by some parallel dynamics between what participation in a town like Celebration is about and what campus community citizenship is supposed to be about."
