Portland State is designated as a Changemaker Campus by Ashoka U, a global organization that promotes education to support social innovation and civic engagement. That means that throughout their time at PSU, students encounter opportunities to put their ideas for a better world into action.
The Mobilizing Hope capstone course, one of several University Studies capstone options for seniors, is one example of a place where students get to do exactly that.
The course offers students the opportunity to work directly with a community partner or organization on a project they design together to jumpstart meaningful change. Like all capstones, the course is multidisciplinary and collaborative, giving students opportunities to engage in meaningful work while also making wider connections with potential future employers.
University Studies instructor Heather Petzold and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies professor Vicki Reitenauer developed the course back in 2008, and Petzold has been teaching it ever since.
Often, students come to Petzold with an idea for a project – maybe they have already been working with a community organization as a volunteer or an intern, or maybe they know of a group they want to get involved with – while other times, students don’t yet know what they want to focus on when the term begins.
Either way, Petzhold guides them through the process of finding a community organization, and selecting a project that will be truly useful to the folks on the ground.
“The partnerships are designed between the student and the community partner. We’re not going to a community partner and saying, ‘Hey, let us do this thing for you.’ The community partner is saying, ‘This is what we need. Do you have skills that could align with that?’ They are in the conversation,” says Petzold.
Students volunteer with their chosen organization for 30 hours over the course of the term, and also participate in class discussions about their individual projects and assigned readings, reflect on their experience in essays and participate in a group presentation.
The students’ projects, says Petzold, have been incredibly diverse and inspiring. Just last term, students worked on projects with farmworker labor organizers, food banks, community-based mental healthcare, a baseball club and a Congolese community group.
Bear Martin, a current student in the capstone course, has been volunteering at the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver for the last several months. “I’m really passionate about this work,” says Martin. “I didn’t want to stop doing it. So I contacted my advisor, who said, ‘We have a capstone for that.’ It was like a gift from the universe being like, hey, here you go.”
Martin worked alongside the museum director to create a project for the capstone. “My project is to find ways to connect the deaf community and the blind community to our museums,” says Martin, who is also a member of the deaf community. “I am working with the Washington Museum Association for their conference in June to provide accessibility for people who want to go.”
After they graduate from PSU, Martin hopes to become an Executive Director for a museum. They say that this capstone project is already helping them toward that goal. “I am a hermit. I like doing solo stuff. But this is really helping me learn how to accept help from the community,” Martin says. “And that I can’t be an executive director if I don’t interact with people.”
Jamie Lucero was a student in Petzhold’s course last term. She knew she was interested in working with youth, and she chose the Washington County Juvenile Department for her capstone project.
“I got to do a little bit of everything. I shadowed the transporters as they drove the youth to the facility, [and] went through the intake process with them,” she says “I was even qualified to check in with the youth every week for a half an hour, just to hang out.”
This connection with the young people in the system was particularly meaningful to Lucero. “That was really a big privilege for me, because I was just an intern, but I already felt like I had a lot of trust within the department. And not only that, but trust with the youth. I started to grow bonds with the teenagers that I was seeing every week,” she says.
Not only was the work experience valuable, but the structure of the capstone course alongside it was helpful as well, says Lucero. “I don’t think my thoughts or my goals would be the same if I didn’t have Heather and the way that she set up her class,” she says. “She encouraged us to be brave, to ask questions. Just to believe in ourselves. I really appreciate that.”
Lucero hopes to take the experience of the capstone and her work with the county and apply it towards her career goals. “I appreciated the experience because this is what I want to do. Having that opportunity of being in the department and working for three months as if I was already hired made me realize that this is where I want to be. I want to work with youth,” she says.
The Mobilizing Hope capstone course is an opportunity for students to give back to the community, make connections with local organizations, and get real experience in their field of interest, all with the support of an instructor and a critically-engaged classroom of peers. It’s just one example of how Portland State is committed to serving the city of Portland and making the world a better place.
For more information on Heather Petzold’s Mobilizing Hope capstone course, visit the course website, or check out other offerings on the University Studies website.