American Cornerstones Project Microcredential

The American Cornerstones Project provides first-year and transfer students with a high-impact, shared learning experience focused on a common set of readings directed toward an exploration of American Civic Values. The three-course sequence, open to all interested students, is intended to produce committed and informed students, engaged and ready to help close the alarmingly wide gap between the nation’s democratic ideals and the sometimes-disturbing current practice of its democracy.

Program Learning Outcomes

Students will read closely transformational texts critically analyzing American civic values, and apply what they read to an understanding of the theory and practice of American democracy.
Students will understand the highest ideals of American democratic thought, and the complicated gap between ideals and reality.
Students will be able to articulate and formulate solutions that will help bridge the gap between the way things are and they way they believe they ought to be.
Students will complete an applied and high-impact learning experience during the summer following their first year on campus, conceiving, researching and completing a project that explores significant issues in American democracy to their hometowns.

Requirements:

AMCS 101 - American Cornerstones I - Freedom and Equality Credit(s): 4
AMCS 102 - American Cornerstones II - Community and Citizenship Credit(s): 4
AMCS 201 - American Cornerstones III - Hometown Stories Credit(s): 4
Students will complete an applied and high-impact learning experience during the summer following their first year on campus, conceiving, researching and completing a project that explores significant issues in American democracy to their hometowns.

Following the applied experiece in their hometowns, students will complete a self-reflection.