Project Sponsor FAQs

Our best sponsors are those working in industry who are passionate about educating aspiring sustainability professionals. They can, and have, left a lasting impression on our graduating seniors.

• You either have a problem to solve or an idea to develop. We have 3-4 intelligent, creative and motivated senior students that have 15 weeks to solve your problem or develop an idea. During the semester, each student commits 140 hours to identifying and clarifying your needs, reviewing existing solutions, brainstorming new options, and proposing analysis-based recommendations for your problem. Their process will result in an integrated report, including a detailed problem statement, literature review, description of methods, analyses, and findings, and recommendations to the sustainability problem.
• Through your participation you will be able to assess the technical skills and personal attributes of 3-4 senior SSM students that may be great potential hires that fit well within your company culture and goals.
• Students working on your project have access to UMN faculty members, UMN library resources and datasets, and other UMN campus resources.
• Working with this program may fit the mission of your company to help train and develop future sustainability professionals to take on the many challenges facing the planet.

• Students are looking forward to applying their technical, analytical, and systems-thinking skills to real-world, open-ended, complex problems. They are anxious to test their education and gain some real-world experience.
• Students want to impress future employers.
• Students realize the importance of experience solving real world problems.
• Students use this Capstone Project to enhance their resume.

• We are looking for problems requiring sustainable and interdisciplinary solutions.
• The scope of the projects should be appropriate for senior undergraduate students and solvable in 14 weeks. Please contact us with any questions regarding project scope.
• The primary emphasis on the project should NOT be laboratory experimentation, data collection, or research. The 14-week semester allows for only analysis of existing datasets or minimal data collection.
• The projects should have: no obvious solution, appropriate constraints, involve wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues, and address problems not encompassed by current standards and codes.
• Our students come from four emphasis areas - building science and technology, corporate sustainability systems, energy systems, and sustainable products business management (visit Capstone Home Page) Any project that approaches environmental, economic, and social aspects is appropriate. 
• Most projects do not involve intellectual property or confidentiality. However, if your company is concerned about this aspect of the project please contact the course instructors.
• Here is a list of past projects that might be useful.

• To begin, partners submit a simple online Project Proposal Form with contact information and a brief background and summary of the problem. 
• Organizations are then contacted by the course instructors and asked to provide more specifics on the project such as expanded details on your problem statement, project constraints, realistic goals, and other attributes of the project. Together background and project statement would be written that would be shared with the students.
• There are currently no financial requirements for project sponsors. However, funding for site visits, or access to proprietary datasets may be needed to clarify the problem or help develop a solution.

• Any person, government, non-profit, or business can submit project ideas.
• Students with a project idea are encouraged to bring your idea to the course instructors. If your idea fits the course criteria we will do our best to make it happen.

• Course instructors ensure that the students stay on task and on time with their projects.
• Instructors guide students on ethics, global cultural and social issues, economics, teamwork, report writing, and project management.
• Faculty in the department are available to answer questions from all capstone students. These faculty have diverse skills and can provide some oversight on environmental and economic calculations.
• The Department Makerspace is available for any prototyping that might be needed by students. Any materials used in prototyping would be purchased by the project sponsor. Students have access to a variety of other lab spaces and lab equipment through the University of Minnesota.

• Begin by filling out this online Project Proposal Form
• Expect the course instructor to contact you within 3 business days to get more background on the project details and scope.
• Note that we often have more good projects than we have project teams. Students help decide which projects are selected by choosing projects that fit their interests.

• As an experienced sustainability professional we are expecting you to develop a supportive and encouraging environment in which you can share your experience, knowledge and wisdom about the process and the project to help guide the capstone team in useful directions. 
• As an advisor you can offer suggestions regarding the capstone process and ideas.
• You may find asking the team members questions as a good way to advise them to consider other important issues and ideas that the team may be failing to consider.
• Mentors and advisors are not to direct the team’s work, decide on the recommendations before the analyses are complete, or do analysis for the team.

Here are some details that discuss the role of the instructors, sponsors, and department faculty.