Search Courses
You may search for a Senior Capstone course by selecting a THEME or TERM from the menu at the left. You may also search by entering a part of the title or the instructors name in the box below. For concise listings of all 2019-2020 Capstone offerings, review our Capstone Capsule. If you need assistance, contact the Capstone Office/University Studies at 503.725.5890.
Please refer to the PSU Class Schedule regarding the days, hours, and meeting location. For information about when the new class schedule is available or when you can register for the new term, follow this link: When to Register.
NOTE: Due to the intensive nature of Capstones, students must receive permission from the course instructor prior to the first day of class if they are going to miss the first class session. For on-line Capstones, students must demonstrate active participation during the first week of the term. All Capstone courses factor in student attendance and participation into the final grade which is deeply impacted by missing the first week of the term.
NOTE: "Sustainability" tagged courses will NOT automatically count toward the Sustainability Minor. Students must seek approval from Joseph Maser, Ph.D. in the Environmental Science & Management department to count any Capstone toward that specific minor.
SEARCH BY Title or Instructor: Enter a single word from the title of a Capstone, "gardens", "justice", "literacy", etc., the Course Registration Number (CRN), or a professor's first or last name in the box below.
Instructor Name: Conrad Schumacher
CRN: 64082
Teaching Art and Social Change The working Thesis for this class is that for Art, or indeed anything/anyone, to effect change in a society the work/ideas must be palatable to the majority, real and tangible in terms of outcomes and sustainable over time. We never get far when we try to change using hate, anger, force or such "clubs."
This course is open to anyone intrigued with the questions raised by public Art (and possibilities of Art) in our society. This capstone should be of particular...
Spring 2020Summer 2019Summer 2020Winter 2020
Community Health Arts
Instructor Name: Angela Strecker
Globally, freshwater ecosystems are at risk from a number of anthropogenic stressors. One of the foremost stressors is declines in water quality. We will partner with Sherwood Middle School to promote scientific inquiry into water quality issues in the Tualatin National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). The Tualatin NWR is one of a handful of urban wildlife refuges in the nation, highlighting a unique region where urban areas intersect with natural spaces. Understanding the effects of environmental...
Education-Youth Sustainability Science
Instructor Name: William M Jones, Khoury
SBA 495 is PSU's largest Capstone and engages over 750 students in 35 sections of a business strategy course that partners with a organization in the community to address real world business challenges. In this Capstone students learn to systematically analyze a firm’s internal and external environments and, through engagement with community partners, apply concepts and theories related to the formulation and implementation of business/organization strategies. Students join an...
Business-Engineering-Technology
Instructor Name: Patricia Rumer
Strengthening Early Childhood Education Within the Immigrant Population Participate in a public campaign with Adelante Mujeres, a Latina nonprofit, to educate civic and business leaders on the importance of early childhood education for immigrant communities. Oregon Governor Kitzhaber?s Early Learning Initiative priority is children of color and economically disadvantaged. Students will work with their staff and clients to document successes of Adelante Mujere's early childhood and parent...
Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Jenna Padbury
An Exploration of Leadership Through Service in MexicoFirst offering summer, 2013Students will learn, serve, and live together in Mexico for 2 weeks. Through pre-trip classes, direct service in Mexican communities, interactive sessions with grass-roots leaders, and reflection students will explore the following: leadership, community development, and the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. Service projects may include any of the following: serving meals, building housing, painting,...
Global Perspectives Community Health International Capstones
Instructor Name: Anna Alsufieva
CRN: 64022
Effecting Change: Russian International Capstone requires a 3 term committment (2 credits fall, 2 credits winter and 2 credits spring term). This Capstone is restricted to RUSSIAN FLAGSHIP PROGRAM. Only students who are enrolled in PSU Russian Flagship program can take this course; and the course is conducted totally in Russian.
Intercultural competence is an important skill that one needs to acquire to be a successful and contributing member of modern global society. This course is the...
Fall 2019Spring 2020Winter 2020
Global Perspectives International Capstones Hybrid or Fully online Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Kate Kangas
CRN: 15188
Reporting Live
Reporting Live is a capstone course designed for PSU study abroad students and connects them with Oregon middle school classrooms via interactive blogs. The course is grounded in peace journalism, engaged pedagogy, and intercultural competence theory, and consists of four main components: a pre-term orientation, ten weeks of blogging, online coursework, and a final celebration in which students visit their assigned classroom in person upon re-entry (or online if still abroad...
Fall 2019Spring 2020
Global Perspectives Education-Youth International Capstones Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Celine Fitzmaurice
Encouraging the stewardship of our shared resources
This course will focus on the concept of "the commons" - those resources that humans share and depend on to thrive and survive. Examples of the commons include clean air and water, shared scientific knowledge, or publicly funded resources such as parks, libraries and schools. Increasingly, many aspects of the commons are controlled by the market or private interests. Students in this course will partner with the "Oregon Commons" project (...
Sustainability Education-Youth Community Health
Instructor Name: DeEtte Beghtol Waleed
CRN: 14659
“I learned that I can no longer just turn my head and walk away.”
We are surrounded by violence in many areas of our lives – crime, TV, wars, domestic violence and much more. The class seeks to understand why our culture is violent. We will interview leaders working to overcome violence in the US and other countries to learn how change is possible. Structural violence and the interconnections between violence and poverty will be explored and analyzed in order to learn new strategies to...
Conflict Resolution Conflict International International Relations History Political Science Research Psychology Education Sociology Criminal Justice
Instructor Name: Zapoura Newton-Calvert, zapoura@pdx.edu
The Educational Equity Capstone explores a variety of issues related to educational equity, including segregation, school funding, standardized testing, curriculum choices, and language and bilingual education, among others. The course is designed as a partnership with Portland Parks and Recreations University Park Community Center site, located in North Portland. Serving students from Rosa Parks, Clarendon-Portsmouth, and Peninsula schools, University Parks Homework Club combines educational...
Education-Youth Community Health
Instructor Name: Eva Thanheiser
CRN: 64067
Do you want to have fun and satisfy the University Studies Capstone requirement? If you have completed the 300-level math major/minor requirements, you have the background to appreciate how mathematics lives in the real world: number theory and ATM's, groups used to solve differential equations, ring theory in geometry, algebra in physics-the possibilities are endless!!
Ironically, you live in a society where mathematics is at the foundation of many aspects of your lifestyle, but it is...
Spring 2020
Education-Youth Community Health
Instructor Name: Eden Isenstein
CRN: 82122
Students in this class will work with the Portland State University Women's Resource Center and their community partners to work towards ending sexual assault. The class will work in teams on projects such as, research, awareness raising/prevention, and fundraising. By the end of the term students will be able to articulate the definitions and dynamics of sexual violence as well as current issues in the field. Students will also have gained experience and understanding in what it takes to...
Education-Youth Research Community Health
Instructor Name: Leah Cronn
Creating Access to College for Low-Income Youth This Capstone explores a variety of issues related to equal access to education, including language barriers, bilingual education, No Child Left Behind, school funding, standardized testing, curriculum choices, cultural differences, and lack of health care, among others.
The community partner for this course is Marathon Education Partners, (www.marathoneducationnpartners.org) a Portland based non-profit organization, founded in 2002, that...
Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Leopoldo Rodriguez
Rural communities in NW Argentina are among the poorest in the country. Lacking the rich soils of the Pampas, facing more extreme climatic conditions, and subject to a heavily concentrated land tenure system, agricultural production, the mainstay of the region’s economy, has failed to raise the standard of living of the bulk of the population. The northward expansion of soybean production into marginal lands, while providing new economic opportunities for large landowners, threatens small rural...
Sustainability Global Perspectives International Capstones Retired-course
Instructor Name:
Students in this Capstone will review, research and reflect on the impact of the incarceration of women, the unique needs of female inmates and the diversity of individuals in correctional facilities through structured activities, required readings, video, dialogue and reflective writing. Through the study of existing prison garden programs, students will develop a model for a garden program at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and identify available resources and potential community partners...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Dr. Margaret B. Neal
For more information, contact Iris Wernher (Assistant Program Coordinator): Wernher@pdx.edu
The program connects classroom learning on the topics of gerontology, community development, cross-cultural communication, and public health with collaborative community service in Nicaragua. The spring-term course builds on student knowledge and skills in order to prepare teams of students to successfully complete projects in the field while traveling in Nicaragua. Students will work with each other...
Research Disabilities Community Health Global Perspectives International Capstones
Instructor Name: Sarah Dougher
CRN: 14244
p:ear is a downtown Portland organization that engages homeless and transitional youth, 15-24, using mentorship and the tools of education, art and recreation. p:ear's Kitchen and Food program provides hands-on training for youth in the areas of food preparation, gardening, nutrition, and the economics of eating. This capstone will partner with this program to engage students in scholarship about food cultures, social justice and sustainability, developing independent research about homeless...
Community Health Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Janice Dilg
WOH illustration.jpg
UNST 421 506 Tuesday-Thursday: 10:00 -11:50 a.m. 6 Credits
Monumental Women Senior Capstone students explore and document the ways that women are memorialized and remembered for their contributions to the cultural, educational, economic, and civic development of the city of Portland. Encompassing the entire history of Portland, students have the opportunity to research and write about a historical or contemporary woman, women's organization...
Research Writing Activism History Women's Studies
Instructor Name: Don Trapp
CRN: 64080
Service Coordination Team is multi-agency, multi-faceted program to manage what have been identified as chronic offenders in Multnomah County, Oregon. The purpose of this Capstone is to develop and undertake an evaluation of this program from both a process and outcome perspective. Students will work with all stakeholders in this program at various sites in the community. The final product will be a summary, presented orally and in writing, of the research findings.
Spring 2020
Criminal & Juvenile Justice Community Health
Instructor Name: Kimberly Mukobi, kmukobi@pdx.edu
CRN: 14164
The Grant Writing for Animals: Wildlife Conservation in Africa class partners with the Kasese Wildlife Conservation Awareness Organization (http://www.kasesewildlife.org) to further its goals of creating wildlife awareness and increasing conservation efforts in Uganda (East Africa) through the education of Ugandan communities. Students will participate in the various aspects of grant writing, including researching funding sources, ascertaining the needs of the community partner, proposal...
Fall 2019
Conservation - Wildlife Education Sustainability Animals Online or Hybri Courses Education-Youth Wildlife Conservation Hybrid or Fully online Hybrid Courses Grant Writing Grantwriting