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 2021-2022 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: Annie Knepler
Grant Writing for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Grant writing skills are critical to the survival of non-profit organizations. In this course, we partner with Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) to help them increase their capacity by developing grants for specific projects. The BTA (http://www.bta4bikes.org/) works to promote bicycling and improve bicycling conditions in Oregon and SW Washington. Through reading, writing, research, and presentations, students in this...
Sustainability Research Grantwriting Retired-course
Instructor Name: Suzanne Savaria
CRN: 63522
Description
The arts play a critical role in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities. They have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery and achievement in our personal lives and for our country. In this course we will examine what it means to advocate for the arts and define our roles as advocates. We will explore the world of arts advocacy and arts education and gain a deeper understanding of how to better sustain a...
Fall 2021Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Winter 2021Winter 2022Fall 2019Fall 2020Winter 2020
Education-Youth Business-Engineering-Technology Arts
Instructor Name: Ann McClanan
CRN: 63502
The Medieval Portland capstone is a great fit if you love research, for in this class each student undertakes--with mentoring from the Professor--an individual research project about either a locally housed medieval object or a Portland building with influence from medieval architecture. Students from many different majors have done well in the capstone, as long as they work hard doing the detective work involved in original research. The community partner varies depending on the term, but...
Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Spring 2020
Research Arts Hybrid or Fully online Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Molly Gray
CRN: 81153, 81202
The Rock & Roll Camp for Girls is a local non-profit organization that works to buld girls' self-esteem through musical & performance mentorshp as well as empowers/prepares young women of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles within their communities. Students in this Capstone will examine contemporary social issues related to the lives of girls today, as well as participate in Rock Camp programming & the creation of a final communication plan to secure on-going community...
Summer 2019Summer 2020Summer 2021
Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Alissa Leavitt
CRN: 43643, 63494
Course Description: Students will work alongside the Family Preservation Project to examine pregnancy, birth, and postpartum support while incarcerated. Students will discuss perspectives, resources and policies that impact the physical and emotional experience of parenthood while in custody. Additionally, support services available to families, and children of incarcerated parents will be explored.
Our community partner will be the Family Preservation Project as we work to address prenatal...
Spring 2023Spring 2024Winter 2024
Community Health Advocacy Child and Family family education and social justice social justice public health incarceration Birth Pregnancy Postpartum lactation breastfeeding
Instructor Name: Kimberly Mukobi
CRN: 80920, 80917
Grant Writing for Animals: Shelter Pets
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Approximately 2.7 million healthy, adoptable cats and dogs - about one every 11 seconds - are euthanized in U.S. shelters each year. This class partners with a local no-kill animal shelter to further its goals of eliminating the unnecessary euthanasia of healthy or treatable companion animals in the community and finding them permanent, loving homes.
Students will participate in the various aspects...
Fall 2023Spring 2021Spring 2022Summer 2021Summer 2022Summer 2023Summer 2024Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023
Animals Shelter Pets Pets Grant Writing Online or Hybrid Courses Grantwriting Hybrid or Fully online
Instructor Name: Marylin (Katie) Kissinger
CRN: 63990
Strengthening Headstart: Health, Growth And Justice Head Start is this nation's largest investment in young children to date. It is also one of the few remaining efforts from the 1960's "War on Poverty".
Students will:
review data and documentation of the historical successes and challenges of Head Start;
analyze and reflect on the impact it has had in communities;
engage in a qualitative/participatory research project;
design a collective action project in conjunction with Head Start...
Spring 2020Spring 2021Winter 2020Winter 2021
Research Education-Youth Hybrid or Fully online Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate
This Capstone addresses concepts of racial equity, social sustainability, public health and environmental justice. We will study the racial disparities related to public health, and specifically, access to healthy food systems, and use an “equity lens” research study with a local food store (People’s Food Cooperative), to understand institutional barriers to providing healthy food to underserved communities of color.
Sustainability Community Health
Instructor Name: Marion Dresner
This class will involve students in monitoring the ecological impacts of backyard habitats that are near Portland parks. Students will work in teams in particular targeted neighborhoods. They will monitor some of the following: native and non-native plants, birds, and insects. They will learn about the ecology behind backyard restoration, the procedure for establishing backyard habitats, and assist as residents implement new habitats. They will develop presentations about benefits of...
Sustainability Education-Youth Community Health
Instructor Name: Kate Kangas
In this fully online course we will be exploring how to be effective change agents through volunteer work and by producing a series of radio shorts. Each student will be expected to arrange a project with a community organization before the Capstone begins. This project may be an existing relationship or one sought for the purpose of this class. A minimum of thirty hours of volunteer work is required over the course of the term. As a culminating group project, we will be writing, recording and...
Education-Youth Online or Hybrid Courses
Instructor Name: Zapoura Newton-Calvert
CRN: 81659
The Summer Youth Enrichment Capstone has spent the last three summers working with programs designed to help bridge the summer achievement gap. Since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the "achievement gap" has been at the forefront of discussions about school equity. A significant contributor to the achievement gap is the summer learning gap. According to researchers on the subject, “Achievement gaps by family socioeconomic status (SES) and race/ethnicity widen...
Summer 2020
Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Judith Patton
Students in this Capstone will partner with Opal School (http://www.portlandcm.org/). Students will write proposals to fund special projects determined by Opal School representatives and the class. Class uses an experiential approach: that is, students learn to write compelling grants by engaging in the process of writing actual proposals to be used by Opal School in its pursuit of funding. Opal School of the Portland Children’s Museum is a private preschool (ages 3-6) and public charter...
Grantwriting Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Deborah Arthur
CRN: 64484, 44169
How do I transform my own life? How do I transform my community and the world? This course provides an opportunity for a small group of students from PSU and a small group of students incarcerated at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility (MYCF) to work together in a structured peer and collaborative learning environment to address these questions. Each week, a small group of PSU students and incarcerated young men will meet at MYCF in Woodburn. Students (both outside PSU and inside students)...
Spring 2020Winter 2020
Education-Youth Criminal & Juvenile Justice Community Health
Instructor Name: Mary King / Barbara Dudley
CRN: 44966
Student Debt: Economics, Policy and Advocacy This course provides an overview of the economic and social context and impacts of student debt in the U.S., examining parallels with developing nation debt, mortgage debt and credit card debt, investigating policy options and studying grass-roots advocacy strategies for policy change in partnership with Jubilee Oregon and the Working Families Organization. Working collaboratively with faculty, community members and each other, students will...
Community Health Education-Youth
Instructor Name: Kristen Teigen
CRN: 15246
Voters Rights and Registration: Registration, History and Activism This Capstone will engage students in the activism and history of voting rights during the 2012 election season. It partners with the Bus Project Foundation, a non-partisan, community-based organization dedicated to creating a vibrant democracy by engaging Oregonians in civic and political life. Students will learn the history of voting rights in the US while working with the Bus Project Foundation to register and conduct...
Community Health Business-Engineering-Technology
Instructor Name: Amy Greenstadt
This course is taught on the model of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which brings together college students living in prison (in this case, Coffee Creek Women’s Correctional Facility) with students on the outside. In this unique classroom environment we will focus on the question, “What Is Justice?” The premise of the course is that living a just existence means living imaginatively. “Justice” is not a thing, but an abstract ideal that we must constantly re-envision as we attempt to...
Criminal & Juvenile Justice Community Health
Instructor Name: Patricia Rumer
CRN: 44847
Adelante Mujeres, a non-profit based in Forest Grove, is commited to the education and empowerment of Latina women immigrants. Students will work with staff to prepare Latina women for public advocacy. Students and the women will organize public presentations, including with state legislators. Some travel to Forest Grove and Salem is involved.
Education-Youth Community Health
Instructor Name: Amy Greenstadt
Inside/Out Prison Exchange: Imagining Justice
This course is taught on the model of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which brings together college students living in prison (in this case, Coffee Creek Women’s Correctional Facility) with students on the outside. In this unique classroom environment we will focus on the question, “What Is Justice?” The premise of the course is that living a just existence means living imaginatively. “Justice” is not a thing, but an abstract ideal that we...
Criminal & Juvenile Justice Arts
Instructor Name: Joshua D Binus
The Pacific Northwest has earned an international reputation for innovative environmental policies, from land-use planning to organic farming to solid waste recycling and more. Oregon’s business leaders, non-profit organizations, and elected officials have been working to build on this historical legacy in order to position the state as a global leader in sustainable development. Through this capstone project, since 2006, students have developed what is now referred to as the Sustainability...
Retired-course
Instructor Name: Lisa Bates
This Capstone provides an opportunity for students seeking to advance their skills in community development, youth organizing, and urban sustainability practices through developing authentic relationships and a meaningful project with our community partners at the Multnomah Youth Commission.
PSU students will work in partnership with the Multnomah Youth Commission’s Sustainability Committee in a project of participatory action research and policy advocacy. The MYC engages young people aged...