Course Syllabus

O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

SPCN-V600 Capstone in Public and Environmental Affairs Summer 2026: Section 3903

Monroe County Women’s Commission

Capstone on the Status of Women in Monroe County IN

(aka MCWC capstone)

Instructor:  Diane Henshel

Class Meetings: TBD

Class Microsoft Teams:

All of your work should be stored in Teams. At least one of our main clients can access Teams and so can follow your progress and potentially aid you in getting documents or access to people.

Office Hours:  Please email me to set up meetings.  I will ask to meet with each task group at least every other week during the summer to make sure everything is going okay and to check in and see what I can do to help.

Office hours Zoom:

Generic Capstone Course Description: Interdisciplinary course organized as faculty-coached class project on a management/policy topic determined by an external client. Course goals are professional preparation and integration of degree program knowledge.

Learning Outcomes:

These are the Learning Goals set for the Capstone by O’Neill capstone faculty:

Learning outcome goals (“skills applications under realistic conditions”)

• Project and time management and tracking
• Leadership and followership
• Team development and management
• Professional soft skills
  • Effective listening
  • Dispute resolution
  • Effective, audience appropriate, professional communication
• Client relations
• Research, analysis and decision making under uncertainty
• Operation within a variety of time and resource constraints
• Professional deliverables

Capstone Project Details

Title: Monroe County Women’s Commission Capstone on the Status of Women in Monroe County, Indiana

Client: Monroe County Women’s Commission (https://www.in.gov/counties/monroe/boards-commissions-and-committees/womens-commission/)

Monroe County Women’s Commission on the Status of Women Project Introduction:

The Monroe County Women’s Commission (MCWC) [mostly] online capstone will investigate the situation of women in Monroe County and develop recommendations to help the MCWC identify new policies and actions to improve the status, security and sustainability of women throughout Monroe County.

The Monroe County Women’s Commission reports to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, with several members also appointed by the Monroe County Council. Recommendations developed by the capstone would then be enacted through the Commissioners and would also be submitted to the Monroe County Council.

O’Neill Capstone students have carried out two prior capstone efforts directed at understanding and developing recommendations to address the concerns of women in Bloomington, particularly concerns about gender equity, in the light of the recent Climate Action Plan that had just been released (2022). Many women in Monroe County live outside Bloomington city limits and the Monroe County Women’s Commission would like an updated and county-wide effort to both gather data about the status of Monroe County women using both publicly available data and survey data. Specifically, the MCWC would like to see a similar survey as used in the Bloomington Status of Women capstones developed and implemented across Monroe County, addressing the needs and concerns of the many sub-populations within Monroe County. The MCWC requests the development of a set of recommendations for new and changed policies and Council / Commissioner actions to enhance and increase sustainability and stability in the lives of Monroe County women using an analysis of the results of the survey and the other public data the capstone students compile. The MCWC would particularly like attention paid to how the changes in climate, politics, infrastructure, and funding dynamics are affecting women throughout the county, and would like the recommendations to be future thinking and recognize how societal and environmental changes are particularly affecting women.

Project Introduction and Goals:

The Summer 2026 (mostly) online Capstone is designed to initiate a project for the women of Monroe County, IN similar to the two Bloomington Commission on the Status of Women’s capstones from 2022 which specifically addressed the dual questions of:

• What is the current status of women across Monroe County, Indiana from the perspective of sustainability, gender-related concerns, and equity given the recent dynamic changes in climate, politics, infrastructure, and funding
• What policy and action recommendations would (if enacted) improve the status of women of Monroe County, Indiana from the perspective of sustainability, gender and equity

Comments on the Final Products:

This capstone is expected to have four final products.

1. Survey results and analysis, to be included as both a summary chapter in the Final Report and with full details as a Report Appendix. The survey results should be provided in both written and digital format. For continuity and use by future capstones, please provide co-ownership of the survey instrument in Qualtrics to both D. Henshel and S. Hingle.
2. 2. Final Report with recommendations to the MCWC and through them to the Monroe County Commissioners and the Monroe County Council.
3. One Page Bulleted Summary (a briefing paper) to hand out to the MCWC, and during other public presentations, as requested by clients.
4. Final Presentations to the MCWC (full presentation), and (if requested) the Monroe County Commissioners and Monroe County Council (assume 6-8 minutes maximum), and other interested parties, including any in the O'Neill community who wish to attend the public presentations.

The Final Report will include the standard introductory and concluding materials (Title Page, Executive Summary, Table of Contents, Table of Figures, Table of Tables, Table of Abbreviations, Glossary, Appendices, Contact Information about the Contacts and Clients, Bibliographic blurbs about the authors, Bibliography [in APA or Chicago citation format as chosen by the class {https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/}], and Appendices as relevant).  

All of the items identified in the Goals are to be included in the Final Report.  The Report may contain summary information with the full detailed methods and results and analysis included in Appendices.  The one page bulleted summary will be an appendix, not the more extensive (usually two page) Executive Summary.