Ed.D. Capstone Experience

The doctor of education programs in educational leadership and policy and higher education leadership and policy require completion of a capstone experience during the third year of course work. This year-long assignment is an independent research and analytic activity embedded in a group project. The group project is designed to integrate theories and tools learned throughout the program, and should demonstrate mastery of concepts and methods.

Capstone Problems

Students will be presented with a panel of problems of practice originating from external practitioners and policymakers, generated through the suggestion and review of LPO faculty members. LPO faculty will select final capstone problems.

Each individual problem will correspond to areas of LPO faculty expertise and disciplines ingrained in the program curriculum (e.g. sociology of education/higher education; governance and politics of education/higher education; economics of education/higher education). Three or four problems will be developed each year for each program specialty, with the assumption that no more than three to four students will select any one problem of practice.

During the capstone course, students will develop a document that outlines the scope of responsibilities for each member of the team. This contract between students and faculty will inform individual evaluations at the end of the capstone experience.

Read the memo from Professor James Guthrie regarding the capstone experience.

Final Product

A final capstone product, which will be presented to the faculty in the last half of the final semester of course work, will measure approximately 50-75 pages in length (plus appendices) and will be comprised of multiple sections including: contextual analysis, data analysis, program recommendations, implementation strategy, conclusions, appendix, and references.

Faculty will evaluate individual components as well as the whole of the final product. Final passage will be based upon a combination of these two evaluations and will be granted to the group, not to individual group members. In those cases where the final product requires substantial revision, all group members will participate in a revision process.

Capstone Experience Sequencing

Capstone problems are presented to each Ed.D. cohort in the fall of the third year in the capstone experience course. (Note: the course carries three hours of credit in the spring semester, but will meet once in the fall, and twice in the spring of Year Three.)

The first weekend class will be devoted to discussion sections on each problem of practice. The purpose of the first weekend is to introduce the array of capstone problems and expected scope of the final product. The second capstone weekend class will be scheduled early in the spring semester of Year Three, and will involve work sessions on each problem project.

A third and final weekend will be scheduled late in the spring semester and will involve student presentations of individual capstone projects and an oral evaluation by the capstone committee (see below).

Capstone Committee

The members of each program cohort will be assigned a project committee comprised of a capstone director (a faculty member who receives teaching credit for the capstone experience course) and two additional faculty members. The third faculty member is drawn from outside of the department to maintain peer faculty oversight of project quality. Additional committee members may be added from external organizations directly related to the problem's focus.

The capstone committee advises and provides regular feedback and critique to students from each cohort during the final year of course work to ensure high quality capstone projects.