A Teagle Foundation Grant
SUNY Cortland was awarded a $25,000 planning grant by The Teagle Foundation. This grant will support a year long planning process to create and submit an implementation proposal. The Project Directors for the planning grant are Benjamin Wilson - Economics, Andrea Harbin - English, and Anisha Saxena - History.
The Teagle Foundation's "Cornerstone Learning for Living initiative aims to revitalize the role of the humanities in general education." To achieve these aims, Cortland's Cornerstone Champions will generate a list of 100 transformative texts that will be the "Cornerstone" of common intellectual experiences shared by our students as they traverse our General Education Curriculum. These common experiences will begin with a Gateway course and continue on with Thematic Pathway clusters that will give students the opportunity to explore their General Education experiences with greater cohesion.
Through this initiative, we aim to cultivate a vibrant culture of reading, dialogue, and reflection—anchored in the humanities but stretching across disciplines—as students engage with texts that speak to what it means to be human.
Transformative Texts
This curated collection of texts forms the cornerstone for building shared intellectual and cultural experiences among our students as they engage with the Humanities and General Education. These works—diverse in form, origin, and perspective—have had a lasting and meaningful impact on human society.
Our collection will include, as examples, influential works of fiction by authors such as Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and Chinua Achebe, as well as transformative non-fiction texts like Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the writings of Nelson Mandela, and philosophical works by Aristotle.
But our list will go beyond books alone. We seek powerful expressions of human thought in every written form: short stories, poetry, song lyrics, legal documents, letters, manifestos—any written word that has challenged, reshaped, or deepened our understanding of the human experience.
Each selection is chosen not only for its literary or historical significance, but for its potential to spark conversation, reflection, and connection—across time, cultures, and lived experiences.
Gateway Courses
The Gateway Courses aim to build intellectual community through a shared academic experience. These courses will draw at least 50% of their readings from the list of Transformative texts, encouraging students to contemplate how and why these works have influenced society.
This Spring our pilot Gateway Course will be ENG 120: Good Books and How to Read Them, generously taught by Dr. Abigail Droge and Dr. Dan Radus of the English Department. Our goal is to grow the Gateway offerings such that two thirds of our incoming Freshman classes will share this common Gateway experience.
Thematic Pathways
The Thematic Pathways are an exciting opportunity to create cohesion across our General Education curriculum. Far too often students see GE as something to "get out of the way" and do not appreciate how these courses bring value to their educational experience.
In contrast, our Thematic Pathways will provide new opportunities for students to take ownership and find direction in their General Education studies. Anchored by a proposed general theme of "Living Well", we will be exploring various mini-themes such as human and environmental health, the economy and politics, tensions between the individual and the common good, and a range of related topics to generate complementary micro-credentials that support the development of majors across campus.
How to Get Involved
The development of our Gateway course, the list of 100 Transformative Texts, Thematic Pathways, and Micro-Credentials will all be stronger given wide participation across campus. In that spirit, our group has already been working with a diverse collection of offices and committees across campus. Through these conversations and efforts we have brought together a team of Cortland Cornerstone Champions to help lead our efforts.
Cortland Cornerstone Champions
- Joseph Anthony, Political Science Department
- Alexandru Balas, International Studies
- Kenneth A. Cohen, Recreation, Parks and Leisure Studies Department
- Abigail Droge, English Department
- Bridget O. Hier, Psychology Department
- Jeremy Jimenez, Foundation and Social Advocacy Department
- Scott Moranda, History Department
- Daniel Radus, English Department
- Jeffery J. Werner, Chemistry Department
Building the List
Please share with us texts that have been transformative in your life, teaching and learning! We are seeking texts that are culturally and temporally diverse, engage with enduring human questions, and represent a variety of genres and disciplines.
Please use this Form to give us some information about your Transformative Text.
You can explore the Cornerstone Projects of other Universities, such as Purdue's Integrated Liberal Arts and others at Cornerstone: Learning for Living.
Campus Events
This year we will be hosting a number of events to help bring voices from around campus into the fold. These events will include previous and current Cornerstone recipients to share their experiences, "How I Teach the Text" events, panel discussions featuring potential Thematic Pathways and more!
Please email teagle@cortland.edu for more information.
Implementation
All of this is geared towards the successful application for a Cornerstone Implementation Grant. This second round of funding from the Teagle Foundation will support the Implementation of our program. This grant is up to $300,000, so many more people will be needed to help support these efforts. So please get involved and help us build our a innovative and exciting program that supports creativity and knowledge across our campus for years to come!