The Program

Cornerstone Scholar Certificate

This four-course certificate provides students with the opportunity to recognize and value connections between humanities studies and their personal and professional goals. Students will engage with transformative texts – influential writings from diverse cultures and time periods -- and participate in discussions about questions of justice, human rights, politics, the environment, the role of technology and corporate culture, and the place of arts and culture in their lives. Students will think creatively and critically about the idea of “the good life” and how this relates to what it means to be human. This mode of critical and creative thinking can become a basis, or cornerstone, of students’ lives while at UMass or in future workplaces.

Certificate Requirements

The certificate is open to all undergraduates at UMass Amherst.

To fulfill requirements for the certificate students must complete four general education courses:

HM&FNART 101 - Traversing Differences with Critical and Creative Thinking: Local Issues (AL DU
HM&FNART 102 - Traversing Differences with Critical and Creative Thinking: Global Issues (AL DG)
2 general education courses (100-300 level) selected from 1 of 4 pathways: Business and the Humanities; Environment and the Humanities; Science/Technology and the Humanities; or Global Studies and the Humanities. Pathways courses are listed on the Cornerstone Scholar Certificate website (https://www.umass.edu/humanities-arts/cornerstone-initiative).

CHC students may use HONORS 201H (Ideas that Change the World) as a substitute for HM&FNART 101 or HM&FNART 102.

Certificate Objectives

On completion of the certificate students will:

Understand the value of broader perspectives to be gained from humanistic and interdisciplinary lines of inquiry
Have developed a capacity to synthesize different forms of knowledge and information
Be equipped with narrative leadership skills developed through the critical and creative analysis of innovative influential texts
Have developed the confidence that their diverse life experiences – formed through racial, ethnic, class, and gendered identities or their intersections – are invaluable to discussion and decision-making, both in the classroom and future workplaces.

For more information about the certificate and how to complete it, contact:
Professor Moira Inghilleri
Office: Herter Hall 328
Email: minghilleri@complit.umass.edu
Phone: 413-545-5808
Contact: Jennifer Carbery, Office Manager
Website: https://www.umass.edu/humanities-arts/cornerstone-initiative