For the second time since the start of the calendar year, Claremont McKenna College’s Open Academy (OA) has received a major grant that will enhance programming and initiatives across campus.

With a recent $300,000 grant award from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF), CMC plans to design new academic curriculum emphasizing Open Academy values of constructive dialogue, freedom of expression, and viewpoint diversity. Specifically, CMC will implement “The Open Academy Curriculum,” springboarding from a firm foundation of knowledge and readiness established through its successful suite of campus-wide programming that has thrived alongside classroom instruction since OA’s founding in 2018.

Through the development of new courses and modules, the curriculum initiative aims to provide a systematic approach for faculty seeking to more intentionally integrate OA commitments into their courses. The goal is to further enrich classrooms with challenging discussions, while simultaneously teaching students the skills to engage in these conversations with respect for their peers, said Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor of Government and Ethics and Director of The Open Academy.

“We are very grateful to the AVDF for their support and excited to work with faculty and students to think seriously and systematically about how to best facilitate thoughtful dialogue and respectful debate from a variety of viewpoints into our curriculum,” Evrigenis said.

To initiate the project, Evrigenis will lead a series of open discussions this spring among CMC faculty and students about how OA principles are represented in the contemporary liberal arts curriculum. He hopes this will set a foundation for the first of three consecutive summer workshops dedicated to careful design and rigorous assessment of the resulting courses and modules at CMC. 

The intended course structure will combine controversial issues with training to enhance the skills necessary to discuss them productively. Modules, on the other hand, could be used broadly by any faculty who are interested in integrating them into their teaching, no matter the discipline or subject, Evrigenis said.

The AVDF grant is the second major funding award The Open Academy has received in the past three months. Previously, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $2.4 million grant through 2029 that will enable CMC to sustain and expand Open Academy efforts locally and across the country—a testament to the College’s national leadership in approaching the principles of The Open Academy comprehensively.