Both majors and course enrollments in the liberal arts have been in decline since the recession of 2007. The College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University has sought to reverse this by offering a new outreach program to science, technology, engineering, and math, and management students called Cornerstone. Cornerstone is a 15-credit-hour certificate that pivots faculty from their departmental courses to a new first-year sequence for students across the university. The faculty created alternatives to the obligatory, skills-centered English composition and introductory speech courses at Purdue, primarily taught by graduate students. In designing Transformative Texts, they deliberately set out to create a course that all liberal arts faculty would want to teach. This would be a course that would do more than reinforce skills; it would also enrich the lives of students and inspire them with a love of learning and all its related virtues: empathy, perspective, wisdom, and joy. The faculty also wanted these classes to emphasize mentorship, giving first-year students across the campus a mentorship experience with a full-time faculty member, someone who could guide them, foster their talents and interests, and continue to be a resource throughout their college career. This new sequence, Transformative Texts I and II, marries written and oral communication skills with foundational readings and acts as a gateway to more advanced liberal arts courses. To complete that Cornerstone certificate, students take three more liberal arts courses that align with their interests, from science and technology to health care and medicine. Preparing faculty to teach Transformative Texts has reenergized liberal arts faculty and helped make them better teachers, helped them learn more about how their college and university work, and created partners with other units across campus, equally concerned about the liberal arts and the welfare of students.