Timeline of Cornerstone
The Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts Program offers all Purdue undergraduate students the opportunity to fulfill many of their University Core Curriculum courses through a coherent series of classes that complement their academic major area of study. It begins with an enriched first-year sequence anchored in transformative texts and is designed to work with all degree programs.
The first Cornerstone courses, SCLA 101 Transformative Texts, Critical Thinking and Communication I: Antiquity to Modernity, and SCLA 102 Transformative Texts, Critical Thinking and Communication II: Modern World, were offered in Fall 2017 to about 100 students. In Fall 2020, over 2,200 students are enrolled in the courses.
The first hint of what would become Cornerstone dates to early 2015 in a letter to the Purdue community from Purdue President Mitch Daniels. Citing a series of statistics about the class of 2014, he pointed out that only 40% had taken an economics class, only 45% had taken sociology, 23% philosophy and 15% or fewer had completed one government course, one literature course, or an American history course. In response to this trend, he noted,
“Our Provost [Deba Dutta] and Liberal Arts dean will be working with the faculty on ways to refine the current Core Curriculum to make sure that future Boilermakers to do not leave West Lafayette without having encountered the essential facts and ideas central to the preservation and success of a free society.”
This letter came weeks after David A. Reingold was named the Justin S. Morrill Dean of Liberal Arts and two months before he arrived on the West Lafayette campus to begin the assignment.
Daniels followed up later that year, encouraging the incoming class of students to be more purposeful with their electives. He urged students to take at least one course in history, philosophy and literature as part of their Purdue studies.
In response, Dean Reingold convened a task force of faculty in June 2015. The task force was charged with drafting a plan to develop an integrated program in liberal arts. A report suggesting a framework for the as yet unnamed program was delivered in September 2015.
To develop the academic program, Dr. Melinda Zook, professor of history, was named the inaugural director of the Integrated Program in Liberal Arts in April 2016. Professor Zook led the initiative from the Dean’s Office and worked in concert with a group of Faculty Fellows to develop and propose the program’s curriculum. In August of that year, the name Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts was adopted. The program was first introduced to the Purdue Board of Trustees and Provost in September.
That spring and summer, Dean Reingold worked with campus academic leadership and Professor Zook reached out to administrators and faculty in Engineering, Nursing, Pharmacy, Technology, Science, Management, Health Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine. Across the board, they pointed to students’ weak communication skills and their lack of knowledge about the wider world. She shared early plans for the new program centered around themes suggested by Dean Reingold. The purposeful pathway it gave students to fulfill their general education requirements was often noted.
Professor Zook enlisted the help of seven Liberal Arts colleagues (Christopher Lukasik, Associate Professor of English; Kim Gallon, Assistant Professor of History; Yvonne Pitts, Associate of History; Jeffrey Turco, Associate Professor of German; Patrick Kain; Associate Professor of Philosophy, Molly Scudder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Antonia Syson, Associate Professor of Classics). Through the 2016-17 academic year, Dr. Zook and her Faculty Fellows developed the curriculum for the Cornerstone certificate as well as the first-year sequence: Transformative Texts SCLA 101 and 102.
Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Joel Ebarb led the effort to secure approval for the certificate among the University’s associate deans. He also worked through the curriculum approval process with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE), the College, and submitted the first-year courses to the University Core Curriculum (UCC) as options to fulfill requirements for Written Communication and Information Literary (SCLA 101) and Oral Communication (SCLA 102).
In the spring of 2017, the approvals rolled in. UCC: SCLA 102 (3.23.2017), SCLA 101 (4.17.2017), Certificate (CLA Senate 4.18.2020 and ICHE 5.18.2017).
All of this cleared the way for the first set of SCLA 101 and 102 courses to be offered in Fall 2017. About 100 students enrolled in 2017-18 as work continued to encourage the updating of academic Plans of Study across campus to allow students to choose from these options for the UCC requirements.
With many campus plans of study updated and a strategic scale up of the program, Cornerstone enrollments were robust for Fall 2018 with 990 students. In Fall 2019 that grew to 1,869 and in Fall 2020 it exceeded 2,200 students in courses offered in-person and online in response to COVID-19.
Recognition of Cornerstone and its impact grew as well.
A September 2018 op-ed by Dean Reingold in the Washington Post pointed to Cornerstone as a remedy for an overly specialized STEM curriculum, which had come under fire earlier in the summer in a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Just two months later, Purdue President Mitch Daniels received the Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education. His remarks cited the Cornerstone program for equipping “STEM graduates with the essentials of liberal education.” The Award honors individuals who advance liberal arts education, core curricula, and the teaching of Western civilization and American history.
November 2019 saw major articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education featuring Cornerstone in back-to-back weeks. The first asked, "Can You Get Students Interested in the Humanities Again?" while the second touted it as a modern Great Books solution. Fall semester enrollments in the first year sequence grew to 1,869.
Only three years after first teaching Cornerstone’s introductory courses, in September 2020, the program was recognized as the inspiration for a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Teagle Foundation. Together, they will sponsor Cornerstone: Learning for Living, a grant program to reinvigorate the role of the humanities in general education across the country. NEH committed a minimum of $7 million to the project. The Cornerstone: Learning for Living initiative is designed, through general education, to provide all students with the opportunity to broaden their understanding of the world and themselves, while strengthening the skills to read closely, write clearly, speak with confidence, and to engage with differing viewpoints and perspectives—all capacities cultivated by the humanities that are crucial for participation in our democracy.
Cornerstone also launches its first issue of The Cornerstone Review. This journal celebrates the critical, literary, and artistic accomplishments of Purdue’s undergraduate students enrolled in Transformative Texts. Edited by Cornerstone faculty, the Review is dedicated to some of the very best of their work.
The Fall 2020 enrollments in Transformative Texts exceeded 2,200 students.
2021 Fall 2021 Cornerstone opens the Chris and Michelle White Cornerstone Reading Room. The space is dedicated to the quiet study of transformative texts and is located on the first floor of Purdue’s Humanities, Social Sciences and Education (HSSE) Library. Here students can find core texts from around the world, including those they are engaging in their Transformative Texts courses. It is also a place where Cornerstone faculty can bring their students to explore the riches of the library.
This room was generously funded by Liberal Arts alumni Chris and Michelle White, as well as The Teagle Foundation, The Liberty Fund, and countless members of the Liberal Arts faculty, who donated their books for our shelves.
During Fall 2021 enrollments in SCLA 101 and SCLA 102 exceeded 7,830 students
2022 In the Fall of 2022, The Boyer Commission 2030 report highlights Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts as a national model that has “reinvigorated the humanities in general education at Purdue and elsewhere.”
The report also lauded hiring in the College of Liberal Arts for which virtually all tenure track hires commit half of their teaching to Cornerstone. Through this, the report noted “the opportunity and the power to break open the silos of departments in service to university mission.” The report further advocated for a university education that blends career preparation, the humanities, and a strong foundation in general education. The Boyer Commission was tasked with developing a 2030 blueprint for undergraduate education at U.S. research universities.
During Fall 2022 the College of Liberal Arts hosts the conference, “Reimagining General Education: A Cornerstone Institute.” The conference was centered around Purdue’s Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts as a model for other institutions of higher education. In its sixth year the program has attracted considerable national attention, and at the time 37 other universities and colleges were replicating its design. The conference pursued two goals: firstly, to showcase, celebrate and look forward to the next five years of general education innovation at Purdue; and secondly, to reinforce the message and mechanics of building a successful, and sustainable Liberal Arts program.
2023 Fall 2023 marks the launch of a specially-curated set of SCLA 101 and 102 sections designed for first-year students in the Mitch Daniels School of Business. Part of a new program, Cornerstone for Business, students in the Daniels school read classic texts in economics, philosophy, and history to build an understanding of free-market capitalism. Over 600 business students enrolled that semester with another 3,100+ students in traditional sections.
The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the article "Gen Z is Ready to Talk. Are Professors Ready to Listen?," written by Cornerstone Director, Melinda Zook. The article explores how Cornerstone is using the humanities to reach this very different generation of students.
2024 Fall 2024 marked the launch of Purdue Indianapolis campus opening with Cornerstone faculty there to deliver oral and written communication to 450 new beginners through SCLA 101 and 102. In West Lafayette, over 4,000 students enrolled in Cornerstone and nearly 700 in Cornerstone for Business
In September 2024 The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) Designates Purdue University’s Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts Program as a Hidden Gem for its Robust Liberal Arts Curriculum. ACTA’s Hidden Gems initiative shines a light on degree programs, honors, and certificate programs that guide students through a high-quality and coherent interdisciplinary education across the liberal arts.
On October 21, 2024 Purdue’s Cornerstone program was featured on ‘PBS NewsHour’. While filming on campus, “PBS NewsHour” spoke with David Reingold, senior vice president for policy planning and the Justin S. Morrill Dean of Liberal Arts; Gary Bertoline, Distinguished Professor of Engineering Technology and Computer and Information Technology; and Melinda Zook, Cornerstone Director and Germaine Seelye Oesterle Professor of History; and Purdue students in the Cornerstone program. The segment, titled “Purdue program works to revive liberal arts as key part of the college experience,” showcases how Purdue's innovative approach is shaping well-rounded graduates across campus.