Cornell College

Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa is built entirely around one course at a time: students take a single class for eighteen days before moving to the next, eight blocks a year. Cornell states it has organised its whole campus around this for nearly fifty years, and the structure has real consequences. Faculty can take a class on a field trip for a day or an entire block, and the calendar accommodates full-time internships or research in a way a conventional timetable cannot. It is one of forty colleges profiled in 'Colleges That Change Lives'. Merit scholarships are automatic with no paperwork, and Cornell states 99% of students receive some form of financial aid. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, and its Chaplain and Spiritual Life office is described as offering support 'for people of all faiths', which is a more explicitly inclusive statement than most religiously affiliated colleges make.