Cornerstone: An Experiment in Interdisciplinarity and Community

This forum, on the First-Year Cornerstone course at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), tells the story of the creation, collaboration, community, and cultivation of learning that has developed as a result of teaching a course across various disciplines and divisions, with a longevity different from anything else that has been tried at UNI in such a vein. It focuses on the work taken to effectively cross multiple disciplinary and divisional boundaries in order to create an interdisciplinary academic course community for first-year students. Prior to 2008, UNI had virtually no courses reserved exclusively for first-year students, and those initiatives that had been attempted were mostly co-curricular in nature. Then, in Fall 2011, 243 students, across 10 sections, became the first Cornerstone cohort. Since then, First-Year Cornerstone has increased its offerings dramatically, and in Fall 2014 saw an enrollment of 609 students across 25 sections, a feat accomplished via an intensely collaborative project in which students, faculty, and staff worked as one, towards the goal of helping first-year students succeed in college