The newly-renovated, cozy room of the cottage buzzed with interested faculty, students and reporters viewing displays that highlighted the cottage’s importance not only to De Anza College, but in the greater Silicon Valley. 

Apple cider and other holiday snacks were laid out for party guests at the cottage, previously what was part of the servants’ quarters. 

The Institute of Community and Civic Engagement and the California History Center’s Resource and Research Lab celebrated the opening of the East Cottage at De Anza College Dec. 12 of last year. The East Cottage is the new home for the ICCE and the CHC’s new Resource and Research Lab (Social Sciences and Humanities Division). It also serves as a home to student activism.

“The main purpose of this newly-renovated cottage is to preserve different types of history. Oral history, for example, is a great way for people to learn and preserve [what they learn],” said Cynthia Kaufman, the director of ICCE who played a large role in the success behind this cottage. 

Students can use the East Cottage to network with others working towards preserving history. President Brian Murphy best explained the opening of the cottage in his speech when he eloquently praised the benefits of this cottage as “a way to connect the past and the future”. 

With a resource and research lab at the end of the corridor in the cottage, the East Cottage is open to all students enrolled at De Anza, with no minimum unit requirement. Students are welcome to come in and seek help in history projects and check out audio/video equipment to interview subjects to aid in preserving campus history. The resource room also contains an interview room for students who may need space to efficiently communicate and interview people for their projects and aim to learn and preserve stories of the past. To aid students with their history projects, there are student aid representatives available to students, including Alyssa Cisneros and Adam Coquia. 

The festive afternoon included key speakers such as De Anza College President Brian Murphy and Tom Izu, executive director of the California History Center. Izu told a brief but quaint story of the nostalgic location where the East Cottage was built. The space was originally servants’ quarters in the 1890s, before Willus Polk—an American architect who died in 1924—came and saw the original cottages which inspired the mission-revival style design of the new cottage. 

The East Cottage is officially available to all students and will be open on Monday through Thursday from 11:30 am to 3 pm. All students are encouraged to get in touch with their communities with this building!