Global Perspectives

An Exploration of Leadership Through Service in Mexico
First offering summer, 2013

Design/Edit 4 Organ Donor

Students will work with the nonprofit agency Donate Life Northwest (DLNW) while learning about their mission to save/enhance lives through the promotion of organ, eye, and tissue donation. Students will design/edit promotional documents (digital, video, electronic or for print), while integrating knowledge from their own field of study, familiarity with today's popular culture, and the community partner’s mission to increase registration of voluntary organ donors in the Pacific Northwest, and to honor the brave individuals and their families who make the decision to donate.

Refugee Support and Education: Paving the way to Citizenship  This course will delve into the modern refugee experience through direct contact with refugees served by two Portland nonprofits: Refugee and Immigrant Support and Education (RISE) and the Immigrant Refugee Community Organization (IRCO).

Convening Diverse Groups to Resolve Community Issues  Creating sustainable solutions to the most critical and pressing issues confronting our communities is only possible when diverse stakeholders are able to come to together to collaborate.  This course is designed to give students an opportunity to gain essential knowledge and skills to work effectively in collaboration with others, and to understand how that same collaborative process is successfully being used to solve our most pressing community problems.  Local leaders can play a critical role serving as "conveners" t

Course Description: 

Middle School Equity & Inclusion is a hybridized capstone offered each Summer.  Through text and community engagement PSU students will observe and reflect on race, language, and class privilege as they are encountered by immigrant children and their families.

Meditation for Global Healing. With meditation as our framework, we will explore the concept of personal healing and awareness as a foundation for global healing. Meditation is a practice that encompasses a philosophy of living with a quiet mind, open heart, and in service to others.  This capstone provides an opportunity to explore ancient Chinese philosophy, personal healing, and social responsibility within the context of a mindfulness practice. Working with a community partner gives you the chance to be of service to people who are homeless in Portland and learn about their needs and your engagement in the context of the course material.

“For millennia the world’s Indigenous Peoples have acted as guardians of the web of life for the following seven generations. They have successfully managed complex reciprocal relationships between diverse biological ecosystems and multitudinous human cultures.  Awareness of Indigenous Knowledge is reemerging…” Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future, 2008.

Through community experience and classroom, education capstone students will learn about the academic needs and cultural adjustment of African refugee youth.  Students will either support the children in a classroom setting 3-4 hours per week, or lead an after school homework club from 3-5:15 either Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays starting the second week of class.

Increasingly, migrant workers in Oregon and other western states are arriving from southern Mexico, especially from the indigenous communities in the southern state of Oaxaca. Migration impacts the health of this population in complex ways, and challenges health care systems on both sides of the border. This Capstone course takes students to Oaxaca, Mexico to study the cultural, economic and social forces that impact health in both sending and receiving communities.