Course Syllabus

V600: Capstone in Public and Environmental Affairs

Section 12159 • Syllabus • Summer 2026

 Teacher           Scott Burgins                             Hours              Tu/Thu 10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Classroom       SPEA A205                               E-Mail              Rburgins@iu.edu                    

Office              SPEA 375C                                 Office Hours    By appointment          

Phone             812-272-3620                          Web site          Canvas                            

Project:           Evaluation of Floodplain Development Potential  

Client:             The City of Jasper, Indiana 

 

The Capstone Experience

The V600 Capstone courses are intended to address topics that integrate public policy, management, and science/technology in an interdisciplinary framework. The class will involve a group project that requires students with very different backgrounds and skills to work together in a collaborative learning format.

V600 is intended to integrate a wide variety of previous coursework, including both the core curriculum of the MPA/MES/MSES and each student's individual concentration areas. As with all capstone courses, students will be required to move beyond established comfort zones to develop skills in a career-like setting.

Course Format

This course mostly will be self-taught and self-directed where you learn by doing. The professor’s role is to provide guidance and serve as an advisor and coach. For example, Capstones have few lectures unless students request and arrange them. The professor and client will provide reading and other background material that may help with certain tasks, but students are mainly responsible for acquiring the necessary subject matter expertise via written material or invited speakers or consultants. Please feel welcome to draw on the expertise of the full O’Neill faculty.

To provide students with an experience that approximates real life, the class organizes into work teams and – reflecting professional practice – works collaboratively with peers and responsibly with clients to produce the deliverables. Groups are responsible for their own quality control, divisions of labor, and work schedules within the framework provided by instructors.

Group learning will happen partly through instructor and peer input, which should be frank, clear and constructive, as it would be in the workplace. Teams should bring to instructors or to the client liaison questions that they would consider bringing to a supervisor in order to ensure that their work is correct and efficiently executed.

General Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students will understand how to:

• Team-building and effective, efficient teamwork with appropriate professionalism
• Project planning and delivery with excellence
• Coordination and optimization of team areas of expertise
• Learning, synthesizing, and creating deliverables that meet high expectations in short timeframes
• Receiving, responding to, and incorporating client feedback with appropriate professionalism
• Cultivating resilience and flexibility to meet rapidly evolving work needs with excellence

Expectations of instructor: Faculty members will recognize that their roles in the Capstone projects are as coaches and facilitators, and not as authors. This role may include:

• Initial project management coaching.
• Time management and tracking guidance.
• Client relations coaching.
• Team relations coaching.
• Direct intervention with clients only as needed.
• Oversight of deliverables.
• Assessment of work quality and assignment of individual grades.

About This Project

Expectations of Capstone students: This class will follow the traditional model of V600 Capstones with students expected to gather sufficient information to produce an early Scope of Work acceptable to the client, and then to execute the work plan by the end of the course. Data collection and analytic tools may include surveys, interviews, existing agency and community data, statistical and descriptive analysis. Students must respect client confidentiality and privacy.

Client-Team Interactions: Must be structured, professional, and timely, as agreed upon in the Deliverables section of the statement of work.

Normally, each group within a Capstone designates one student to act as Client Liaison for each client for the duration of the process, clearly delegated to be the main group contact for the client.

Client Liaisons must coordinate across groups to ensure that client contact is efficient and information acquisition is maximized.

Client: Josh Gunselman, City of Jasper Department of Community Development & Planning.

Course Structure and Organization

Class members will divide into work groups to address the various aspects of the project. Each work group should focus on a specific topic or major element of the project. Students will also need to establish an organizational structure to coordinate both within and across groups, to generate the final recommendations and summary analysis, and to work with the client. The precise organizational structure will be established by class members with input from the instructor.

All work groups will be expected to meet periodically with the instructor to discuss group progress, issues, and general questions. These sessions will be added to the syllabus after the group structure has been established.

The syllabus includes many sessions designated as “open work days”. These days may be reformatted at the discretion of the class or the instructor, for whatever purpose necessary and as needs arise.

Deliverables

Summary: An oral and written proposed work plan, two progress reports, a preliminary draft of the final report and recommendations, a preliminary oral presentation of the final report, and a final written report and oral presentation to the client.

Proposed Work Plan: Due second week. Graded. A critical element of the course. Designed by all class members to address the proposed deliverables, each group's anticipated major tasks, the timeline for these tasks, and the overall method and timeline for integrating group contributions into a comprehensive set of deliverables.

The work plan should include an organizational strategy for ensuring cooperation and coordination across groups during the semester, particularly since the project's components are interdependent and require a coordinated strategy. Formal presentation of the work plan and discussion with the instructor and client representatives should result in a revised document. This revised work plan will guide each group and the class throughout the remainder of the course.

Two progress reports: Each work team will report to the whole class and instructor work accomplished to date, upcoming challenges and anticipated problems, anticipated changes to the work plan, etc.

Presentation of final work: This happens in four stages:

(1) Final written draft of report and recommendations for internal feedback from instructor. This will be graded.

(2) Practice presentation, in class, for classmate and instructor feedback. This will not be graded. This is a dress rehearsal for the final presentation to the client representatives and other stakeholders. It should be treated as though the class was making the presentation to the client. (3) Formal (graded) presentation of the project, methods, findings, and recommendations to the client. Appropriate professional dress is required for all in-person meetings with the client. (4) A final written deliverable, submitted to the client and instructor on an agreed-on date (graded).

Course Requirements and Grading Criteria

Do not be surprised to find your work being critiqued in ways you have not encountered before. The standards will be those appropriate for professionals in the workplace. These may differ considerably from standards from the classroom and may also differ somewhat from standards you have encountered elsewhere in the workplace or in internships. If you have questions about expectations, ASK!

Grading will be a combination of class (C), group (G), and individual (I) evaluations, meaning the entire class will share a C grade, work groups will share G grades, and individual students will own I grades.

         Scope of Work Plan (C)                                                         15%

         Group Progress Report I to Class (G)                                    5%

         Group Progress Report II to Class (G)                                   5%

         Midterm Peer Evaluation (I)                                                   5%

         Draft Report and Recommendations (C)                             15%

         Final Project Presentation to Client (C)                               10%

         Final Written Report to Client (C)                                         30%

         Final Peer/Self Evaluations and reflection (I)                     15%

The peer/self-evaluations will be done at the middle and end of the course, and will provide an opportunity for each student to assess the contributions of themselves, other group members, and other class members. You will not grade students with whose work you are unacquainted, but you will grade those with whom you worked on proposals and final projects. Particularly poor grades from peers will be grounds for lowering individual grades even when they were initially counted as group or class grades. Peer comments that “you did all the work on the group project” will not raise your grade since a key course goal is to achieve a collaborative work product.

The V600 Canvas site will be used as the primary depository for documentation, resources, relevant readings, and data sets. Thus, all major documents must be uploaded to Canvas in addition to being submitted to the relevant parties. These include the work plan, progress reports, the final report and presentation. Required readings may be added to the syllabus and the Canvas site as the semester progresses, some of which may be required for the entire class and others for specific groups. NOTE: Even if you decide to use another platform (e.g. Google docs) to get work done, the Canvas site must be used for the deliverables described above.

Academic Integrity

This course requires individual integrity and professionalism from all students. You are responsible for understanding the concept of plagiarism and for avoiding it all times. Of particular importance is the fact that in Capstones, all members of a group are jointly responsible for ensuring that what you write and edit are entirely your own work, and when not, are appropriately cited.

What about use of AI on this course?

Using AI to assist in completing assignments is severely limited in this course. Do not use it in any assignment unless it has been cleared with me. Otherwise, you will be guilty of Academic Misconduct and all of its brutalizing penalties. We will discuss in class when ChatGPT will be part of an assignment. All other use of AI is prohibited.

You are permitted to use the free version of Grammarly and Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar tool. 

If you use AI in an unauthorized manner, you will be committing plagiarism* and will be subject to penalties in this class and sanctions by Indiana University. 

WARNING: Submitting any questions, assignments, notes, slides or other instructor-produced course materials into Generative AI without permission is a violation of the faculty member’s exclusive rights and will be reported to the Dean of Students as academic misconduct.

*Plagiarism: Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work, including the work of other students, as one’s own. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the information is common knowledge. https://studentcode.iu.edu/responsibilities/academic-misconduct.html.  

What if I need Help?

Some of you, for whatever reasons, may find yourselves facing more than you can easily handle during the semester. It may be something wonderful, or it may be something terrible, but it will make it difficult or impossible for you to focus, work, think, or otherwise deal normally with the semester.

Whatever may have happened, please remember that the Health Services folks have people whose primary job is helping students survive such problems, and your professors are aware that these things can happen. It’s easier to help if we know something is going on. Please try to be in touch as soon as you can - it makes it easier for all of us in the long run, even if it is difficult in the short run to bring yourself to talk about it. You don’t owe us the details – just a message that life has become difficult or complex and some idea of what kind of timeframe you think might be involved will help us to help you best.

It’s easier to help if we know something is going on. Please try to be in touch as soon as you can - it makes it easier for all of us in the long run, even if it is difficult in the short run to bring yourself to talk about it. You don’t owe us the details – just a message that life has become difficult or complex and some idea of what kind of timeframe you think might be involved will help us to help you best.

Counseling and Psychological Services

For information about services offered to students by CAPS:  http://healthcenter.indiana.edu/counseling/index.shtml

 TimelyCare

Indiana students have free, 24/7 access to virtual mental health care services with TimelyCare. Students do not need insurance to access TimelyCare services. https://www.iu.edu/mental-health/find-resources/timely-care.html#0

Religious Accommodation Requests

The "Request for Accommodation for Religious Observances" form must be submitted by the student to the professor no later than two weeks prior to the anticipated absence.  A separate form must be submitted for each absence and for each course. Faculty do not have to consider accommodations for the purpose of allowing students to travel away from Bloomington for religious observance.  Information about the policy is found here: https://vpfaa.indiana.edu/resources/religious-observances-information.html.

 Accessible Educational Services (formerly Disability Services for Students) 

Securing accommodations for a student with disabilities is a responsibility shared by the student, the instructor, and the AES Office. For information about support services or accommodations available to students with disabilities, and for the procedures to be followed by students and instructors: https://studentlife.indiana.edu/student-support/iub-aes/index.html

Sexual Harassment 

As your instructor, one of my responsibilities is to help create a safe learning environment on our campus. Title IX and our own Sexual Misconduct policy prohibit sexual misconduct.  If you have experienced sexual misconduct, or know someone who has, the University can help.

If you are seeking help and would like to talk to someone confidentially, you can make an appointment with:

1. The Sexual Assault Crisis Service (SACS) at 812-855-8900
2. Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at 812-855-5711
3. Confidential Victim Advocates (CVA) at 812-856-2469
4. IU Health Center at 812-855-4011

For more information about available resources:  http://stopsexualviolence.iu.edu/help/index.html. It is also important to know that federal regulations and University policy require me to promptly convey any information about potential sexual misconduct known to me to our campus’ Deputy Title IX Coordinator or IU’s Title IX Coordinator.  In that event, they will work with a small number of others on campus to ensure that appropriate measures are taken and resources are made available to the student who may have been harmed.  Protecting a student’s privacy is of utmost concern, and all involved will only share information with those that need to know to ensure the University can respond and assist.  I encourage you to visit http://stopsexualviolence.iu.edu/help/index.html to learn more.

 

IU Culture Centers: https://studentlife.indiana.edu/communities/culture-centers/index.html