Schools with Existing Programs

Here are some ways you can get involved with our project:

1. Become a Member of the Capstone Consortium

2. Attend the Summer Summit

3. Offer to mentor a peer school

4. Submit materials for the Resource Library

 

The Capstone Consortium

We’re glad that you share our belief in the value of capstone programs. We invite you to register your school and program leaders as members of the Capstone Consortium. Doing so signals your interest and investment in this kind of education. We hope you will register below and provide a bit of information about your program. While there are no formal requirements of membership, we hope that member schools will be active participants in this community by attending colloquia, sharing materials, and working with new programs as mentors. Joining our community will keep you in the loop about future events and opportunities. Click here to join the Consortium!

 

Summer Summit

To launch this initiative, we invited leaders and representatives from several schools to Thacher’s Ojai, California campus in the summer of 2013 for our inaugural Summer Summit. Our primary purpose was to develop a set of best practices and a library of resources that will be housed on this website and available to all.

In the Summer Summit 2014, in addition to welcoming experienced participants with established programs, we also included participants interested in developing and implementing new capstone project opportunities in their schools.

The Summits focus on programs with three basic characteristics: (1) they are primarily academic in nature, (2) they require long-term scholarly research, and (3) they require a formal presentation. Within these basic parameters, we hope to attract schools that reflect diverse approaches to ways of thinking about and structuring capstone projects.

We plan to partner with a broad range of independent, charter, and public schools—throughout the country—at our Summer Summit program. If you are interested in joining us for a week of stimulating discussion, collegial sharing, and professional growth in a beautiful location, please click here for information on the next Summit. If you are interested in helping to facilitate one or more Summit sessions, please let us know.

Click here for directions to Thacher and information on the Ojai area. If you have questions about the Summer Summit, please take a look at our FAQ page or send us an email.

 

Mentorships

As we seek ways to inspire and encourage schools that are considering adding a capstone program, we’d like to be able to offer to match them with mentor schools. Such relationships could take a number of forms, including offering advice and guidance, sharing experiences, and perhaps even arranging a campus visit. If you would be willing to consider serving as a mentor school for a capstone program in development, let us know and we’ll look for opportunities to make a match.

 

Resource Library

We welcome submissions of written materials, weblinks, and other media related to your program to be archived in our resource library. Descriptions of the program, outlines of its structure, sample evaluations, examples of student work, and any other materials relevant to your program would be ideal. These materials will be available to anyone wanting to learn more about capstone projects. You can check out some examples in our Resource Library.