A GRADUATE LEVEL CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE IN A SCHOOL OF NURSING: CORPORATE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

A graduate level capstone course, taken in the last semester of a master in nursing graduate program, engages each student in corporate level project development. Community agencies provide high level corporate mentors to collaborate with graduate level nursing students to develop a program approach for promoting health and preventing further disease throughout the community. The civic engagement projects range from the topics of analyzing health literacy levels of populations in the community and developing tools to assess levels; to decreasing over consumption of high fat and sugary diets; to offering heart healthy information for adolescents at a local public high school; to including general hygiene awareness among elementary school aged children; to creating a booklet organizing the health resources for the indigent in the community; to developing tobacco cessation options for the indigent emigrant population. The nursing students work with leaders in each corporate agency to research each topic and develop a written program approach for each health challenge for other professional to use in their health promotion program offerings. This curricula approach provides sustainability as each new section of the Project Seminar course provides incoming students with the opportunity to build on what their predecessors developed during the previous semester.