Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative – Dec 1

Posted by Teagle Foundation on October 18, 2022

Teagle Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities invite applications for Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative

The Teagle Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) are jointly sponsoring the Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative, a grant program to revitalize the role of the humanities in general education.

The 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 and the culture and society by which we 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. Two types of grants will be awarded through the initiative:

Planning grants: Will provide support for faculty at participating institutions to 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; and whenever possible, pilot courses featuring transformative texts.

Implementation grants: Will support institutions to enact concrete plans for comprehensive and sustainable curriculum development or redesign efforts. They may be used 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; and to support the work of recruiting students, addressing library resources, and similar expenses.

Through the program, grants of up to $25,000 over six to 12 months for planning and up to $350,000 over 24 months for implementation will be awarded. Grants may be used to cover such expenses as compensation for faculty members on the planning or implementation team and for travel to annual faculty professional development institutes sponsored by the Teagle-NEH initiative and other similar professional development opportunities.

This funding opportunity is available to regionally accredited private not-for-profit and public institutions of higher education. The initiative welcomes the participation of a diverse array of institutions—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, regional comprehensive institutions, and research universities.

Concept papers are due December 1, 2022, and selected applicants will be invited to submit proposals and are expected to finalize their applications by early April 2023.

For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Teagle Foundation website.

Deadline: December 1, 2022 (Concept papers)