All political science majors must complete POSC396 Senior Project / SAGES Capstone.

This course fulfills the capstone requirement for both UGER and SAGES. A senior project has always been a political science major requirement. Therefore, even students completing a capstone in another major must complete POSC396 for the political science major. 

The senior project is an independent study supervised by a department faculty member, resulting in a paper and an oral presentation. For examples of capstone projects and their supervising faculty members, see here.

Identifying a Topic and a Supervisor

Students should think about topics that they would like to learn more about, and should meet with various POSC professors to discuss possibilities of supervising a capstone in those topics. This should be done the semester prior to the desired semester to complete the capstone.

Students are advised to pay close attention to the schedule of sabbatical and/or research leaves for our faculty. We cannot guarantee that any specific faculty member will be available to supervise capstone work in any specific semester. Additionally, no faculty member may supervise more than five capstones in a semester. Moreover, no member of the faculty is required to supervise any particular topic or student. 

The best capstone topics are likely to explore further questions arising from your previous or current POSC coursework. Each member of the faculty will have their own expectations of projects. All will expect some significant writing. It is important to plan ahead. Faculty are also expected to require completion of some work by the middle of the semester, and to reflect any failure to deliver work in the midterm grade report. Beyond those requirements, there are many forms of senior capstone projects. Some students will collect and analyze primary data. Other students will write critical literature reviews. Regardless of the individual faculty member, the most important foundational components of a successful capstone project are 1) finding a faculty member enthusiastic about the capstone topic, with whom the student can work well, and 2) crafting a clear agreement between the faculty member and the student about the project requirements.

Capstone Proposal and Course Registration

Students enroll in POSC396 by requesting permission in SIS from the faculty member who has agreed to supervise their capstone. It is important to have confirmed a supervisor for the project the prior semester. Registration must be completed by the end of add/drop each semester. This requires the completion and submission of a capstone proposal to the Department Administrative Office prior to the end of add/drop for that semester (the second Friday).

The capstone proposal form should be completed by the student and their supervisor. It should include:

  • Identification of the topic and the research question
  • What written work will be required, and by which dates
  • An overview of how the research will be addressed (that is, the means or methodology)

Additionally, the student and supervisor must agree upon and indicate on the form a date for the submission of the final paper and both need to sign and date the proposal.

Oral Presentations

All projects are presented in a public forum. The political science department employs a format modeled on our disciplinary academic conferences, with formal presentations of work in progress, followed by questions and discussion. Individual student presentations last approximately 15 minutes, including the student’s oral presentation (c. 8-10 minutes), with the remaining time reserved for questions and comments from the audience, and student response. Students are expected to participate as audience members in their colleagues’ presentations.

Students are not expected to have their final capstone paper ready for presentation. Nonetheless, students are expected to have advanced their work sufficiently to be able to give a coherent and interesting talk. The feedback on the presentations will be useful to the completion of the final papers.

The Department schedules the capstone presentations for an evening in one of the penultimate weeks of each semester. A buffet dinner follows the presentations and students are welcome to invite friends and family members to attend both the presentations and dinner.

Final Submission

Students should submit their final paper to their supervisor by the agreed-upon deadline.