Learning for Living

Overview

The Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative aims to reinvigorate the role of the humanities in general education, and in doing so, expose a broad array of students to the power of the humanities; help students of all backgrounds build a sense of belonging and community; strengthen the coherence and cohesiveness of general education; and increase teaching opportunities for humanities faculty.

Two curricular components of the Cornerstone program model are especially notable. 
First, gateway courses aimed at incoming students that are anchored in a common set of transformative texts help build intellectual community among students as well as faculty through a common learning and teaching experience. Studying such texts—whether ancient or modern—that have transformed the world and that continue to have the power to transform individual lives under the mentorship of faculty gives students a strong start to their time in college. Gateway courses anchored in consensus lists of such texts help counter the centrifugal forces that can make the college experience feel desultory and disconnected. Such courses create a framework that allows students to make better-informed curricular decisions as they proceed through college, and provide a repository of skills and perspectives on which they draw throughout their formal education and beyond.

Second, thematically organized clusters of courses that bring humanistic inquiry to problems in business, health, engineering, and other technical fields help students appreciate that technical problems cannot be addressed exclusively through technical solutions. Such clusters also provide a purposeful and coherent path rather than a menu of unrelated options for completing the general education requirements. Engagement with the humanities inspires students to reflect on their values, instills a love of learning, and enriches their lives. 

Criteria for Project Proposals: Institutions will be selected based on the design and scale of their proposed programs. Selection criteria for both planning and implementation requests are described in further detail [here]:

• A faculty-led and faculty-owned initiative
• A common intellectual experience anchored in transformative texts for incoming students
• Coherent pathways through general education
• Student reach, particularly for STEM and other pre-professional majors
• Sustainability
• Assessment
• Dissemination

Submission Process: Requests for grant support will be considered following a two-stage application process. First, we ask that prospective grantees share brief concept papers, whether they are interested in planning or implementation support. After review of the concept papers, a limited number of applicants will then be invited to submit full proposals.

Concept papers for planning and implementation awards must be submitted by December 1, 2026 to [email protected]. Applicants will receive status notifications by February 2027. Applicants who are invited to submit proposals will be expected to finalize their applications by early April 2027. Work supported by the grant may begin as early as summer 2027.

Interested applicants may wish to refer to this toolkit that distills lessons learned in setting up a Cornerstone program. For additional details, please see this list of frequently asked questions.

Award Types: Implementation grants of varying amounts, up to $300,000 over 24 months, will be made to each funded project participating in this initiative. The size of the implementation grant award will be based on the scope of the project. Planning grants up to $25,000 over 6-12 months are strongly encouraged to lay the groundwork for successful curricular reform and faculty professional development.