Letter from the Vice Provost

DELTA is a place where individuals with diverse experiences and expertise collectively harness our talents to create extraordinary learning experiences and provide excellent service to our various stakeholders. I am privileged to work with such a collaborative and accomplished team with a cornucopia of talents and skills that enjoy doing amazing work together. 

Valuing the contributions and unique perspectives of each team member is part of what supports an individual’s sense of belongingness in DELTA and in any organization. Every individual should feel they can fully participate in organizational conversations with a sense of acceptance, dignity and respect. Recognizing that every person can positively contribute to the conversation is what helps us to create exceptional learning materials and to provide outstanding support to our many customers. Simply put, when you harness the talents of every person on your team, you can collectively do what an individual acting alone cannot. In all that we do, we leverage the talent of each of our team members to accomplish extraordinary things for NC State. Together, we achieve more.

Yearbooks are an important way to capture the memories for a given year, and I encourage you to review our DELTA Grants yearbook to see some of the outstanding instructional production work our team has created. Exploring solutions for instructional challenges, we’ve partnered with NC State’s accomplished instructors to create simulations, apply gaming theory, and use other innovative learning techniques to design memorable learning experiences for our students via 65 unique grant projects this year. 

Quality course creation and support has also remained a focus for us, with 16 additional courses receiving QM certification this year for a total of 75 courses at NC State now having this nationally recognized certification. User-friendly course design, the application of best practices, and a culture of assessing student learning outcomes make these courses role models for what excellent online instruction can be.

Inclusive course design practices; that is, helping our instructors design courses that consider the unique needs of a variety of learners and ensuring those courses are accessible to everyone, is something that we remain committed to. The unique students that come to NC State from every corner of North Carolina, around this nation and beyond should feel a sense of belonging within every course that we offer.  “Yes – I love it” is the reaction we want students to have when they participate in any course that DELTA has supported.

And speaking of support, in the past year our team has provided training, help desk and classroom support to all 12 of NC State’s Colleges. Noteworthy efforts have included significantly expanding our online resources in the form of our searchable Knowledge Base and our Teaching Resources website, providing just-in-time access to resources to support our faculty. Development has also continued on Wicked Problems, Wolfpack Solutions, a multi-college/unit partnership in its fourth year that supports all incoming first year and transfer students. In addition, we’ve been exploring how to further democratize XR development by providing a 40-student class XR kit with specialized 360 VR equipment and access to emerging platforms for immersive storytelling and virtual tours.

New technologies have made their way into our WolfWare toolkit (VoiceThread and Wooclap) as we work with our faculty to ensure they have the tools needed to meet their instructional goals. 

Collaborating with our campus partners, such as ClassTech, we continue to work diligently in supporting our existing tools as well, for example, Panopto, which saw an increase of 13% in lecture viewership this year. Lecture capture is another way to support student success, giving students the opportunity to review difficult course concepts and ensure they have access to lectures that they may have missed during an absence. 

Unique challenges occasionally arise for every organization; nonetheless, a resilient team collaborates to find solutions. Serving NC State’s distance learning programs, our interactive DELTA classroom in Poe Hall (Poe 202), closed along with the building in November, 2023.  Investigating various options, our team shifted around schedules for our remaining DELTA classrooms and were not only able to accommodate the Poe 202 classes, but were also able to host seven additional non-DE courses to meet university needs. Other challenges have presented themselves this year resulting in discussions about future resource needs and prioritizations; for example, additional demands on requests for our instructional production teams and increasing usage numbers for our enterprise academic technologies. Negotiating an extended lease and eventually finding a more suitable, long-term location for our Testing Services service remains one of our most pressing challenges. 

Maintaining an engaging, positive and supportive work environment for DELTA team members and supporting a culture of lifelong learning is one way that helps our team members approach challenges as opportunities for reflection, problem solving and growth. Active in our professional communities, DELTA staff gave 40 conference presentations this year at 16 unique events and conferences, served in leadership roles in 20 national associations, participated in 23 professional organizations, and authored or co-authored 8 publications. Team members are actively engaged on our campus as well, leading or co-leading 7 campus interest groups and participating in 46 different NC State committees and working groups. Together with NCSCaLE, we are also modeling the way for shared business, marketing and communications services.  

Every person on the DELTA team is an active contributor to both DELTA and NC State’s success. Recognizing, and more importantly, celebrating, the expertise across our DELTA team continues to allow us to achieve our vision and mission in designing, creating and supporting extraordinary learning experiences. Supporting an inclusive workplace matters, and as evidenced by the amazing work that the DELTA team has accomplished this year, when we value and utilize the unique talents of everyone on a diverse team, magic happens!