Capstone courses at Brown’s School of Public Health give graduate students the chance to integrate learning across their core courses, concentration courses and practicum experiences. As the name implies, the capstone is a culminating project for MPH students and can be pursued in place of a traditional thesis.
Shira Dunsiger, associate professor of behavioral and social sciences, biostatistics and psychiatry and human behavior at Brown, teaches a celebrated capstone course that allows students to engage with local public health issues they care deeply about. The course, PHP 2077B Capstone: Program Proposal, is focused on identifying community needs and crafting interventions that improve health and well-being.
“The course gives students an opportunity to leverage all the skills they’ve learned over their MPH program and give back to the community,” Dunsiger said. “Not only does it teach the importance of really listening to our partners, but also how to develop a program proposal, which is not part of the thesis or graduate coursework.”
Over the semester, students of PHP 2077B are tasked with conducting a needs assessment, identifying funding sources and drafting a grant proposal, which they deliver to their community partner. Proposals this year addressed many issues, including funding equipment upgrades at firehouses, food for elderly adults and summer programs for children at Boys & Girls Clubs.
Carsen Shumaker wrote a “Drug-Free Communities” grant proposal and submitted it to the CDC for funding. Her project focused on preventing cannabis and nicotine use among youth in Kent County, Rhode Island.
“We integrated knowledge from qualitative and quantitative data analysis, epidemiology, biostatistics, budgeting and broader public health practice to create a comprehensive proposal intended for funders, researchers, government agencies or private organizations,” Shumaker said. Individualized guidance and support throughout the process from Dunsiger and the course teaching assistants “helped students strengthen both their ideas and professional writing skills."
Shumaker, who will graduate this month, submitted her grant proposal to the CDC in April and expects a funding decision in September. “I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn grant-writing skills from professionals with extensive experience in public health funding and program development,” she said. “The course strengthened both my confidence and my technical skills, and allowed me to further explore my interests within public health.”
“I think we have some of the best proposals I’ve ever seen over the last few years,” Dunsiger said. “These courses bring out our humanity with efforts to fund school lunches, extra health care visits for the elderly and vaccine information programs. We have such a variety of program proposals and such a variety of audiences and community partners. Our students are brilliant and their heart is in it, which is what matters most.”
The capstone course comes at a moment in the MPH program when students likely know what type of organization and project is important to them.
“It takes a while for people to develop their interests and I really wanted students to pick something they were passionate about,” Dunsiger said. “I wanted them to put their heart on that piece of paper. What makes the course so amazing is that everybody’s passion is different but at the heart of them all is public health.”
Dunsiger teaches by example, discussing her own proposals and what’s made them successful. She also explains every failed grant she’s ever written and every proposal that went unfunded. And success, she stresses, is dependent on listening: “I’ve always said to my students that they have to really ask what the community partners need and then listen to their answers. It’s not just a courtesy. It helps us get to the core of the issue.”
