The Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative aims to revitalize the role of the humanities in general education.
Donor Name: The Teagle Foundation
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 12/01/2025
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
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.
This initiative is dedicated to the proposition that transformative texts—regardless of authorship, geography, or the era that produced them—perform a democratizing function in giving students the analytical tools and historical awareness to interrogate themselves as well as the culture and society by which they are all partially formed. Such texts give students access to a wide range of lived experiences and form the basis for creating a common intellectual experience that fosters a sense of community.
Funding Information
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.
Use of Grant Funds
- Planning grants may be used to cover such expenses as compensation for faculty members on the planning team and travel to annual faculty professional development institutes and other similar professional development opportunities. Planning grants provide support for faculty at participating institutions to achieve the following:
- establish criteria for inclusion of works of literature and philosophy and generate a consensus list of transformative texts, along with a policy for how texts from the consensus list will be used across sections of the gateway course, with an eye to creating a common intellectual experience for students
- design coherent pathways through general education
- lay the curricular groundwork for the proposed program, including achieving any necessary approvals by the appropriate academic governance committees
- engage the leadership and faculty of professional schools, where appropriate, so the program is accepted as part of their majors’ degree plans
- establish a clear strategy for faculty professional development and scale-up, particularly to ensure there are enough sections of the course(s) designated as the gateway to your program to ensure a significant share of the incoming undergraduate student body participates in a common intellectual experience
- whenever possible, pilot courses featuring transformative texts
- Implementation grants provide support for institutions to enact concrete plans for comprehensive and sustainable curriculum development or redesign efforts. They may be used as follows:
- To provide one-time stipends for faculty time committed to developing their readiness to teach in core-text based courses; course releases to design and implement general education pathways; and other similar expenses likely to arise in a major curricular reform effort
- To defray the cost of outreach to academic advisors who help guide students in their course enrollment, particularly at large institutions where academic advising is usually carried out by professional staff instead of faculty
- To support the work of recruiting students, addressing library resources, and similar expenses.
Eligibility Criteria
This funding opportunity is available to regionally accredited private not-for-profit and public institutions of higher education. The Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative welcomes the participation of a diverse array of institutions—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, regional comprehensive institutions, and research universities.
For more information, visit The Teagle Foundation.
