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Capstone Paper Option

Graduate students in the Applied Community Development Sequence (and only those students) may choose to complete their degree by completing 39 hours of coursework with a capstone paper, rather than by writing a thesis or taking comprehensive examinations.

Required Courses for the Capstone Paper Option

  • POL 470/SOA 470 Seminar in Community Development (3)
  • POL 477/SOA 477 Community Project Design and Management (3)
  • ECO/POL/SOA 478 Topics in Administration and Planning (2)
  • ECO 490.04 Seminar in Local Economic Development (2)
  • POL 498.12/498.90 Professional Practice: Community Development Practicum (8)
  • POL 495 Graduate Research in Applied Community Development (3)
  • POL 497 Introduction to Research Methodology (3) or POL 461 Seminar in Political Theory (3) Note: POL 461 is an option only for Master’s International students.

As part of the 39 hours, a student must complete POL 495 (Graduate Research in Applied Community Development: 3 credit hours) as a "capstone" experience.  This is a paper dealing with the student's 498.12 Professional Practice experience, whether by a Fellow's internship or a Master's International student's Peace Corps assignment.  The requirements for this capstone paper are:

  • Students will demonstrate an ability to select an important substantive question about some aspect of community development from their field experience.
  • Students will use their existing knowledge of relevant theoretical and applied literature from Political Science and related disciplines to frame the issue that they have selected in a larger context.
  • Students will make use of the knowledge and experience they have gained from their previous course work to make use of existing data, collect new information, and assemble their observations in an analysis, whether quantitative or qualitative, which will be sufficient to answer the research question that they have posed.
  • Students will interpret their findings in light of previous theory and research findings so as to assess the larger significance of those findings.

Each student electing the capstone (39 hour) option will present a proposal that must be approved by the faculty member they have chosen to direct the project and by the Graduate Coordinator and the Department Chair.  Students are also expected to personally present the completed paper to a meeting of Applied Community and Economic Development Students. (If this proves impractical, a written copy may instead be distributed.)

It should be noted that under this option, students will be allowed to use 8 hours of credit from POL 498.12 (Professional Practice) rather than the 6 hours permitted under the thesis option.