UCLA Students May Study Plaza’s Impact

If negotiations with UCLA’s business school move forward, the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks may soon become a thesis topic for graduate students.

The Thousand Oaks City Council has approved the idea of working with the university’s Anderson Graduate School of Management to have students, as part of their studies, examine the economic impact of the performing arts center on surrounding communities.

The students would gain experience in the field, and the city would get a long-sought economic impact study at no cost, according to a staff report.

In addition, the partnership could lead to a number of long-term educational programs with other parts of the university, said Cheryl M. Collart, executive director of the Alliance for the Arts, the nonprofit Civic Arts Plaza support group that came up with the idea.

“It is not like the good old days when you just do a short field study,” she said. “So we have entered into the possibility of using some graduate students on a very precise study.”