Cornerstone Liberal Arts Program Cornerstone Liberal Arts is an invite-only Honors program run by Assistant Dean of the Liberal Arts College at Texas A&M, Dr. Don Curtis. The freshman experience in Cornerstone consists of two classes: an LBAR 289 lecture series in the fall and a HIST 489 special topics, research-intesnive class in the spring. Students are required to maintain a 3.5 GPR to remain in the program.
During the fall semester, students listen to a variety of lecturers from many of the College of Liberal Arts' departments and discuss these topics collectively as a class. The goal of the fall semester class is to stimulate intellectual growth and development, as well as to develop critical thinking skills.
The spring semester class is significantly different in that it is focused around a single country of interest and the students must complete a research project about a topic relevant to the country of study. During spring break of the spring semester, Dr. Curtis and the students travel abroad to the county of interest for a week long period to help further their understanding of the country and to complete part of their research efforts. Upon returning to Texas A&M, each student is required to write a 15 page research paper about their topic and give a 15 minute presentation to the class.
During the spring semester I was in the program, our class went to Berlin, Germany. The class focused on all aspects of German history, and I feel that being able to be in Germany assisted me in fully comprehending German culture, history, art, and society. To read about my independent research during the spring semester of 2014 in Cornerstone, please click here.
I also took Dr. Curtis' upper-level LBAR 489 class during the Fall of 2014 which focuses on the following topic: "America's place in the world: where do we go from here?" This class was a series of student speakers that lectured and discussed their opinions about this topic themed around their specific research interests. To view the research project/lecture that I completed for this class, please click here.
To read more about the Cornerstone program, please visit the Cornerstone website.