Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative – Dec 1

Posted by Teagle Foundation on October 22, 2024

Teagle Foundation invites applications for Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative

The Teagle Foundation invites applications for the Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative, a grant program 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 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.

Institutions may submit planning or implementation requests, and will be selected based on the design and scale of their proposed programs. Selection criteria for both planning and implementation requests include faculty-led and faculty-owned initiatives; 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; and dissemination.

Planning grants may be used to cover expenses including compensation for faculty members on the planning team, travel to annual faculty professional development institutes, and other similar professional development opportunities. Planning grants up to $25,000 over six to 12 months are strongly encouraged to lay the groundwork for successful curricular reform and faculty professional development.

Implementation grants will provide support for institutions to enact concrete plans for comprehensive and sustainable curriculum development or redesign efforts. Implementation grants of up to $300,000 over 24 months will be made to each funded project participating in this initiative, with the size of the award based on the scope of the project.

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, 2024. Upon review, selected applicants will be invited to summit a proposal, due early April 2025.

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

Deadline: December 1, 2024 (Concept papers)