Application requirement

Registration for Capstone courses is not available through Cougar Trail. You must be placed in the course by the department. See Erin Blevins in the main office after you have been advised to complete an application. Capstones are filled on a first come first served basis; however preference in Fall enrollment will be given to students graduating in December 2008 who complete the application by March 21.

The Capstone is a senior requirement for the major, designed to be completed within the last 9 hours of POLS coursework. There are two capstones offered each fall semester, three each spring, and one in Maymester. It is your responsibility to anticipate when you will need the capstone, and complete an application in a timely manner. Enrollment for each capstone is strictly limited to 25 students to ensure a high-quality culminating experience.

Regardless of the topic, all Capstone seminars include: intensive writing, independent research, opportunities to apply theories and concepts to new problems and cases, and the opportunity to go beyond comprehending the views of others to articulate and defend one’s own view.

Maymester 2008 Capstone
(May 13 - 28)

 

POLS 405 No Passport Required: Globalization from a Community Perspective
(M-F 8:30 am - Noon; France)

This capstone is focused on exploring the connections between local communities and global processes. We want to begin to examine how global economic processes transform social relations at the local level. The goal is to recognize how powerfully globalization acts to shape and transform society and peoples lives. Issues like international competition, outsourcing, the environment, and regulatory systems affect students' daily lives in many ways, from the price you pay for gasoline to the kinds of jobs available after graduation. In order to dispel the conventional notion that globalization is something happening "over there," 4 local low-country case studies (shrimping, bio-diesel production and consumption, longshoreman union, and migrant farm workers), will be employed to demonstrate the presence of globalization "here." Based on a series of interviews with local stakeholders impacted by global economic processes, students will draw on common cross-cutting themes to develop a research project exploring global/local connections from a community perspective.

Fall 2008 Capstone Seminars

 

POLS 405.001 Campaigns and Elections
(TR 10:50 am Dr. Moore)

The capstone seminar is a culminating academic exercise that draws on the knowledge and experience students have obtained in their undergraduate classes. This capstone is designed to introduce students to the practitioner side of politics and to allow them to apply what they have previously learned about politics. This course has two objectives. First, it will introduce students to the techniques and strategies involved in running political campaigns. Second, it will examine voting behavior and the different factors that impact on voter participation and voter direction. All students will be required to work a minimum of 20 hours in a political campaign of their choice. Students will also be required to give oral and written reports on topics related to the course topic.

POLS 405.002 Politics of the End
(MW 4-5:15 pm Dr. Curtis)

Nuclear war. Climate change. Pandemic disease. For the last 50 years we have confronted the possibility that the world as we know it could come to an end. This course takes up the potential radical change in the conditions under which we live in order to examine three particular questions: How do we come to terms with the very idea of such world changing events? How do we prepare for the possibility of such events? How have we politicized the very issues that could bring about such radical change? We will examine each of the above crises through the lens of one of these questions, for example analyzing nuclear preparedness. Students, working in teams on potential catastrophic events, will each research one aspect of that possibility.