A new IU Indianapolis course helps students engage with big ideas

When Faith Evans went to sign up for her first semester at IU Indianapolis, one class in particular caught her eye.

Cornerstone, a new class on reading and writing that encourages students to grapple with life’s big questions, intrigued her, so she signed up.

The class started asking those big questions right away with their first book — Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man, ” a 1951 collection of science fiction short stories that explore humanity and technology.

That got students talking about artificial intelligence, and more broadly, how should humans use technology today?

“I like the whole big idea thing, and thinking beyond just what you’re reading,” Evans, 27, told Mirror Indy. “Obviously these books aren’t right now, but they tie into it very well.”

IU Indianapolis is piloting four sections of the new Cornerstone classes this fall which aim to teach students to think critically about literature “regardless of majors or career goals,” according to a course description.

The program is starting at a critical time for the school’s liberal arts departments.

In 2025, the state passed a law that required public colleges to review and cut or alter academic majors that didn’t have enough graduating students. According to a Mirror Indy analysis, over a quarter of degree programs that were eliminated, merged or placed on an improvement plan at IU Indianapolis were in the School of Liberal Arts.

That means many professors who have devoted their lives to studying fields, such as religious studies or philosophy, no longer have a dedicated undergraduate major at IU Indianapolis.

The Cornerstone model allows professors to have a new way to share their expertise and engage students. Faculty say requiring their classes to read and analyze big questions about life and being alive will also make students better citizens and employees.

“This is what we do best in the liberal arts,” said Peter Thuesen , a professor of religious studies who’s helping lead the effort. “This is what we bring to the table of higher education, and so we’re trying to really rediscover that and present it for students in a new and exciting way.”

In many ways, the Cornerstone program isn’t reinventing the wheel.

Purdue University started the class almost a decade ago as a way to help the college’s engineering and science students build skills such as communication and analysis. Over the years, Purdue’s program has grown to offer dozens of classes, which students can complete as part of a five-course liberal arts certificate .

In Thuesen’s class at IU, students read for homework and come to class prepared to discuss — a typical configuration for many liberal arts courses.

But the books and stories students read as part of the Cornerstone program are intentionally selected because they parallel current issues.

Bradbury’s stories “talk a lot about Mars and us moving planets, and it sounds so surreal and crazy, but so did the stories of AI back then,” said Serena Adeniran, a first-year nursing student in the class. “In our future, that could literally be a possibility.”

With Bradbury’s stories, there’s a bonus local connection. The author’s papers are housed in a museum on IU Indianapolis’ campus, and the school will host a panel in November where this collection will be discussed.

Thuesen’s class recently dove into William James’ “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” Thuesen assigned the book, an early 1900s study of the psychology of religion, in line with his own expertise as a religious historian.

While Thuesen’s students said they’re struggling a bit more to understand James’ “old English,” the judgement-free class discussions let them learn from each other’s interpretations.

And, when they can get through a difficult section, it’s a win.

“It builds your confidence too,” said Savannah Cox, a sophomore studying Media Arts and Sciences, “Of reinforcing, ‘Oh, I am able to understand these topics and these discussions.’”

In the spring, IU Indianapolis is planning to introduce a second introductory Cornerstone course, this one focused on public speaking. Eventually, the school hopes to do something similar to Purdue’s program and offer a liberal arts Cornerstone certificate.

Many of Thuesen’s students aren’t humanities majors — they’ll go on to study subjects such as nursing, social work or even AI. This might be one of the only liberal arts classes they’ll take over the course of their college careers.

But, he’s hopeful that his students will leave class more comfortable reading and having conversations about what it means to be alive.

“We teach students to reckon with complexity,” Thuesen said, “and our world today is nothing if not complex.”

This story was originally published by Mirror Indy and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.