I’ve spent much of this past summer leading a new initiative at Geneseo. I’ve been able to collaborate with some great colleagues, generous and wise, in developing a new “micro-credential” program. We are calling it the American Cornerstones Project, and we received a grant from the Teagle Foundation to help us get the thing off the ground. I sure hope it succeeds.
American Cornerstones is a three-course sequence, open to all first-year and transfer students during their first year on campus. It is open to students from all majors, and will be taught by faculty from across the campus. Some might say that we are focusing on Civics, but the American Cornerstones Project is much more than that. At heart we will look at what this country claims to be, what it aspires to, and the yawning gap that can occur between the way things are and the way they ought to be. The first semester focuses on Freedom/Unfreedom and Equality/Inequality in American life, history, and culture. The second semester examines the themes of community/individualism and citizenship/exclusion. Finally, during their first summer break, students in the program will return to their home towns, conduct research, and create a work that explores some of these themes at the local level. We developed a massive reading list for the course, including important primary sources, but also novels, films, stage plays, poems and music. Faculty who teach the course agree that one half of the readings for the course will come from the agreed-upon list.
I feel that we have begun this program at an opportune time. The Chancellor of the SUNY system has called for an emphasis on civic education in all colleges and universities. He has good reason for doing so. American constitutional illiteracy, in my view, is dangerously high. Americans who do not know their rights and how government works are fit tools for tyrants and demagogues. But even more, empathy is in short supply. Problems that scream for solution surround us, and many of these problems are not new. Yet according to one recent survey, only one in twenty Americans could identify all five freedoms protected by the First Amendment and more than a third of the respondents could not name all three branches of the federal government. This is surface-level knowledge, and we find that our students’ familiarity with the origins, conflicts, achievements, and shortcomings of America’s civic foundations is dangerously low. At the same time, enrollments at colleges across the country in the humanities and liberal arts appear to be in decline. Legislators, pushing students into STEM fields, at times denigrate and dismiss the value of a liberal arts education. The results are clear to see as some colleges have decided to cut programs in the liberal arts and humanities, decisions which we feel pose a grave threat to the health and well-being of the American republic. We need citizens who can think and feel.
Meanwhile, the New York State K-12 Social Studies Framework places little emphasis on local communities. As a result, too many New Yorkers know too little about the places where they live. The American Association of Colleges and Universities argues that “in this turbulent and dynamic century, our nation’s diverse democracy and interdependent global community require a more informed, engaged, and socially responsible citizenry.” This sort of civic engagement and civic learning, we believe, can occur in a more meaningful manner when our friends and neighbors know who and what and where they are in terms of connection to a certain location in place and time. How did we get here? Why is our community the way it is? What is the source of the challenges we face as members of communities? How can we confront those challenges effectively, and what have we tried before?
If you read the news and follow developments across the political spectrum, you will note that many Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, or whether they live in the inner city, the suburbs or rural areas, feel disconnected. When students study their own history, their own place, we teach them, at least in part, that their stories matter. We can connect people who feel disconnected when we present them with evidence that they have a role in their community’s story, that they are themselves forces in history. We want students to understand how and why they and their stories matter.
Just as a cornerstone provides part of the solid foundation for a building meant to last, the American Cornerstones Project at SUNY Geneseo will allow first-year and transfer students who choose to enter the program a unique and unprecedented opportunity to interrogate and analyze the foundations of American civic values: the sources and origins of those values and their contested nature; how well the American nation has lived up to the values it professes to hold dear; and a means for understanding the nature of the chasm that sometimes can appear between the way things are and the way they were intended to be.
So in our American Cornerstones courses, we will talk about what Americans have said over the years about the challenges they face, and the solutions they have proposed to questions of freedom, equality, community and citizenship. We will look at the obstacles they attempted to overcome. We will ask, and attempt to answer, in the classroom and in the students’ hometowns, if things really need to be this way. How, our students will consider, can we create a more perfect union?
I’ve included my syllabus below. It’s a first try. It’s not perfect. We will ask big questions, contemplate a variety of answers, and helps students consider ways to move us closer to the ideals of freedom and equality expressed, but never quite fulfilled, in Jefferson’s unrealized Declaration.
EXPL 188 American Cornerstones I Fall 2024
Instructor: Michael Oberg
Meeting Times: MW, 2:30-4:10, ISC 131
Office Hours: MW 12:30-1:30, Doty 208
Email: Oberg@geneseo.edu
Phone: (585)245-5730
Website and Blog: michaelleroyoberg.com
Required Readings:
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Dover Thrift Editions, (New York: Dover, 2016)
Toni Morrison, Beloved, paperback edition, (New York: Penguin Random House, 2004).
Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Related Writings, ed. Thomas P. Slaughter, (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2001).
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Michael Kammen, (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2008).
Documents linked in syllabus, below.
Course Description: American Cornerstones I is the first course in a three-course sequence, designed to provide you with a high-impact, shared learning experience focused on a common set of readings directed toward an exploration of American Civic Values. Through our readings and class discussions and your writing assignments, we will examine critically freedom/unfreedom and equality/inequality in American life. We will examine the highest ideals of the United States as it developed, consider the alarmingly wide gap between the nation’s democratic ideals and the sometimes-disturbing current practice of its democracy, and imagine ways to close the gap between the way things are and the way you believe they ought to be.
American Cornerstones consists of three major components. You are currently enrolled in American Cornerstones I. In the spring semester, should you choose to continue in this micro-credential program, we will confront in American Cornerstones II additional themes and important questions at the heart of American democracy, focusing particularly upon community/individualism and citizenship/exclusion. American Cornerstones III will be completed while you are home for summer vacation. You will write, compose, construct, or create a story or project about your hometown that addresses a significant question about American civic values. We will work collaboratively to produce a high-quality work on your community that addresses fundamental challenges Americans face at the local level. The work in American Cornerstones III will allow you to be critical and creative, to research and understand a problem, and contemplate a solution.
For this course, you will complete five short writing assignments (see below). You will also keep a journal, in which I hope you will write 300 words a week in which you share your thoughts about the course, what you are reading, and the relationship between the texts we discuss and current events. Also important, however, is class participation. This course will be taught as a seminar, which means that we will read and then discuss those readings. I would like you to view this course as an extended conversation, and this conversation can only succeed when each person pulls his or her share of the load. You should plan to show up for class with the reading complete; you should plan not just to “talk” but to engage critically and constructively with your classmates. Our conversations will depend on your thoughtful inquiry and respectful exchange. We are all here to learn, and each of you has something of value to contribute. I encourage you to join in the discussion with this in mind. Obviously, you need to be present to participate in this conversation. I urge you to resist the temptation to miss class.
With any of these assignments, I encourage you to let me know if you have any questions. You should be clear on what I expect of you before you complete an assignment. Please use office hours, and if you cannot make these make an appointment to see me. I want to encourage you to ask for assistance and advice with your assignments. I will write extensive comments in your journals and essays. I will also make comments on these papers about your class participation. I will ask you challenging questions, offer what I hope you will view as constructive criticism, and encourage you to push yourself as a writer and a thinker. But I will not give you grades, in the traditional sense, on this work.
I want you to benefit from this course. On the date of our first class meeting, we will discuss the standards for the class. You and I will work together to arrive at a set of expectations for the sort of work that will earn a specific grade. In your final journal, and in individual meetings scheduled during Finals Week, we will discuss how well you think you did in meeting the agreed upon standards, and what your grade for the course ought to be. A draft of the grading agreement is located at the end of the syllabus. We will discuss possible changes to the document during our first meeting.
American Cornerstones 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 the 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.
Course Learning Outcomes: American Cornerstones I fulfills the GLOBE Connected World Learning Outcomes for Diversity, Pluralism and Power. That means that once you complete this course, you will be able to do the following things:
- describe the historical and contemporary factors that shape the development of individual and group identity involving race, class, and gender;
- Analyze the role that complex networks of social structures and systems play in the creation of and perpetuation of power, privilege, oppression, and opportunity;
- Apply the principles of rights, access, equity, and autonomous participation to past, present, or future social justice action.
Discussion Schedule and Readings:
26 August Introduction to the Course; Foundations:
Freedom/Unfreedom
Equality/Inequality
Reading: Declaration of Independence; United States Constitution (No need to read Bill of Rights and Amendments 11-27).
28 August It is commonly thought that America was settled by those who sought freedom. To what extent is that true?
Reading: Hobbes, Leviathan (excerpts); Locke, Two Treatises; Christopher Columbus, Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, 1493; the Requerimiento (1510).
4 September Freedom and Settlement, continued.
Reading: Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall (1612); Mayflower Compact (1620); John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity (1630).
9 September Is it possible that America was freer before Europeans arrived?
Reading: Arthur Parker, The Constitution of the Five Nations, (1916), pp. 65-118
11 September One Path to freedom was through the ownership of land. But the acquisition of land required obtaining it from Indigenous peoples.
Reading: Richard Hakluyt the Younger, Discourse on Western Planting, (1584); Treaty of Middle Plantation, (1677); The Apology of the Paxton Volunteers, Adapted to the Candid and Impartial World, (1764).
16 September Another Path to Freedom was, paradoxically, through the enslavement of Africans. What does that say about freedom and equality in America?
Reading: Phyllis Wheatley, Letter to Reverend Samson Occom, (1774); A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa, (1798).
First Paper Due!
18 September It is commonly thought that the American Patriots fought for freedom and equality in their war against the British during the Revolution. To the Patriots, what might freedom and equality have meant, and in what way did these two concepts matter to them?
Reading: Revisit Declaration of Independence; Thomas Paine, Common Sense, (1776); Felix’s Petition for Freedom, (1773).
23 September Discuss First Essay.
American Constitutionalism
Reading: Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, (April 1776); Articles of Confederation, (1781).
25 September The Constitution, Freedom, and Equality
Reading: Revisit the Constitution; Publius, The Federalist Papers, (1787), Numbers 1, 10, 39, 51.
30 September The Constitution, Freedom, and Equality, contd.
Reading: Publius, The Federalist Papers, (1787), Numbers 67-69, 78, 84.
2 October Most New Yorkers Opposed the Constitution of 1787. What’s Their Problem?
Reading: Melancton Smith, The Federal Farmer, No. I, IV, VI, X-XII, XV-XVII (Brightspace)
7 October Did the Bill of Rights Answer the Antifederalists’ Objections to the New Constitution?
Reading: Bill of Rights, (1791).
Paper 2 Due! Discuss in Class.
9 October The Era of the Common Man?
Reading: Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States, (1832).
14 October Complications
Reading: Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), Queries 6 (pp. 68-71); 11, 14 (pp. 146-154); David Walker, Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles: Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, (1829), pp. 1-21.
21 October More Complications
Reading: Tocqueville, Democracy in America.
23 October No Class Meeting: Instructor at Conference
28 October Still More Complications
Reading: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, (1845).
30 October And Even More Complications
Reading: Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman,” (1851); Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” (1852).
4 November Paper 3 Due.
Discuss in Class
6 November What Just Happened? Discussion of Election Results.
Reading: Declaration of Sentiments, (1848).
11 November Today is the 230th anniversary of the Treaty of Canandaigua. We need to talk some more about Indigenous Dispossession in New York State.
We will hold class at the Livingston County Historical Society Museum
Reading: Treaty of Canandaigua, (1794); Treaty of Big Tree, (1797).
13 November What Can We Do When a Government Refuses to Do What Is Just, Right, and Good?
Reading: Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, (1849).
18 November Some Americans believed that freedom, for them, meant the right to own other human beings. What’s the deal with that?
Reading: Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, (1860); Georgia Secession, (1861); A Declaration of the Causes Which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union, (1861).
Paper 4 Due.
20 November It is often said that the American Civil War resulted in a “New Birth of Freedom.” What do you think about that?
Reading: Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address,” (1863); Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address” (1861) and “Second Inaugural Address, (1865);
25 November Reconstructing the Union
Reading: United States Constitution, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
Begin reading Morrison, Beloved.
27 November No Class: Thanksgiving Break
2 December Discussion: Freedom to and Freedom From…
Reading: Morrison, Beloved.
4 December Paper 5 Due. Finish discussion of Morrison, Beloved.
9 December Discuss Final Papers.
Journals Due.
12 December Final Exam Period: Individual Conferences, 12:00-3:20, DOTY 208
Assignments: You will submit your written work on Brightspace. These essays should be typed, double-spaced, in 10- or 12-point type. Take the time to proofread your work. Avoid misspellings and punctuation errors. Ask for help. Make use of office hours. Make sure you are clear about what I expect from you before you begin writing.
Paper 1: In 2021, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt approved a law that restricts teaching subjects that could make a student “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.” In particular, Stitt opposed discussions of slavery and racial injustice that could cause white students to feel “ashamed” of their race. Other states have enacted similar laws. You have read documents that would not be permitted in classrooms in these states. Is Governor Stitt overreacting? Why and how should histories of slavery and Indigenous dispossession be taught? What would you want for your children?
Paper 2: In what ways does the American Constitution, as it was written in 1787 or amended in 1791, enshrine liberty, freedom, and equality as important principles in the American constitutional system?
Paper 3: Thinking of the words of Douglass, Walker, Truth, and Venture Smith, what are they for? What kind of American society do they want? Of course they are opposed to slavery. What do they say in response to the proposition that the United States is a society based upon freedom and equality?
Paper 4: Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia still commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. Other southern states recognize in different ways the birthday of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and a day to commemorate General Robert E. Lee. Tennessee has a day of “special observance” commemorating Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Write an essay making the case for either celebrating or no longer celebrating these holidays.
Paper 5: Think about two different types of freedom. You are free from government interference, the Constitution tells us, when it comes to matters of faith and the free exercise of religion. I want you to think about freedom in this essay: the freedom to be who and what you want to be, to control your own body, to love who you wish, to live free from fear of violence, from want and privation, or from the burdens of the past. What freedoms matter most to you? How secure do you feel those freedoms are?
Journal: I want you to be an engaged reader this semester. Keep up on current events. If there is a particular issue about which you care a great deal, follow that issue closely. Read a newspaper. Keep yourself informed. Think about the relationship between what you are reading in class, our discussions, and the issues you care about the most. Think about freedom and unfreedom, equality and inequality. How well is this country doing in living up to its expressed ideals, and how might you propose closing the gap between the way things are and the way things ought to be? Try to write 300 words a week as you reflect on these questions.
