Letter from the Vice Provost
Last year I wrote about how DELTA’s collaborative partnerships with campus stakeholders exemplified NC State’s mantra of "think and do," but extended it further to "listen, think and do." In reflecting over our activities and accomplishments of the past year, I could easily repeat that theme because it very much still holds true. However, repeating myself wouldn’t make interesting reading, would it? So, what I’ll do instead is to look at the work of our talented team of DELToids from another perspective—the cookbook. Cookbooks can apply to more than just culinary creations. Fundamentally, a cookbook is a collection of recipes. Recipes start with a list of ingredients and then outline a detailed process for transforming those ingredients into a delectable concoction that hungry consumers just can’t wait to sink their teeth into. Everyone who has ever spent any time in the kitchen knows that getting both parts—the ingredients and the process—exactly right is the secret to success. Leave out an ingredient, measure wrong, or cook too long and your creation goes from delightful to frightful. This year’s report is going to give you a glimpse of some innovative recipes that we’ve been working on with our faculty, staff and student colleagues. I’m going to call it the Sustainable Success Cookbook. Here are some previews:
Perfect Program Pie
Ingredients: minimum one faculty champion, a large portion of subject matter expertise distributed among willing faculty colleagues, a spoonful of instructional design and technology help, a plan built upon market assessment and fiscal feasibility, and a supportive administration. Two stories in this year’s report articulate the recipes that were crafted by faculty champions, Dr. Michael Kanters and Dr. Elizabeth Nichols, working with DELTA to design and build sustainable online programs to address the needs of learner communities in their respective areas of expertise.
Savvy Students’ Soufflé
Ingredients: "digital natives" who understand from personal experience how this generation of students learn, mentors with a mission, a creative environment, and a proper set of tools for content creation. How many times have you said, "I wish we’d had that when I was a student!"? We have incredibly smart and talented students at NC State. It’s not difficult to imagine that they might have great ideas about how to make learning more fun and effective for their fellow students, given the tools and support to make it happen. Two of the stories in this report detail how our students are contributing to the success of other students through their work as DELTA interns and through the SMART Videos project led by Dr. Maria Gallardo-Williams.
WolfWare Outreach Ice Cream
Ingredients: outreach programs organically grown at a top-tier, land-grant university, a well-oiled enterprise learning technology infrastructure, a large audience of digital consumers, and a sustainable financial model. The story on WolfWare Outreach provides a recipe which puts the ice cream on the cake in supporting NC State’s mission of outreach and engagement, extending the reach of our non-credit programming and taking it to new levels with digital delivery.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading the recipes in our Sustainable Success Cookbook. We’re always looking for new recipes to add!
Sincerely,
Dr. Tom Miller
Vice Provost, DELTA