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Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Faculty and Staff Resources

Packways: Learning by Doing is NC State’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). Its goal is simple: help every student have at least one meaningful High-Impact Experience (HIE) before they graduate, and to make sure those experiences are intentionally designed to build the skills employers and graduate programs look for.

Courses and programs that meet a set of research-backed quality standards can earn Packways Recognized status. Recognition comes with support for you and visibility and benefits for your students, including digital badging, promotional support, and access to enrichment funding. Below, you’ll find the six elements that define a high-quality HIE, the pathways available for getting your course or program recognized, and answers to common questions from faculty and staff.

Packways Six Essential Elements

  • Sustained over at least a week to enable deep engagement, meaningful learning and relationship building
  • Immersive learning experiences characterized by deep engagement in real-world contexts, authentic challenge and responsibility for outcomes
  • Mentored or highly collaborative, enabling feedback and relationship development
  • Designed to facilitate student connection to and foster connections within the experience
  • Intentional about integrating structured critical reflection to guide students to articulate the value/impact of the experience, connecting it to their broader learning, and linking it with their professional readiness
  • Opportunities to communicate knowledge, competence and takeaways

Professional Development Pathways

Packways ABCs

If you have a new HIEs or need more support to meet the six essential elements of Packways Recognized HIEs, this option is for you. In a series of three workshops (one online, two in-person), a facilitator will delve deeper into the essential elements, and you’ll work with a cohort to develop your ideas. 

In each workshop, you’ll work on your HIE Action Plan. Once the Action Plan is approved, your HIE will earn Packways Recognized status. Due to the higher workload for this option, participants will receive a $1,000 stipend for their participation. Packways ABCs is typically offered twice a semester. Sessions are limited to 20 participants.

Register or Join our Watchlist 

Packways Express

This is for existing HIEs that meet four or more of the six essential elements of Packways Recognized HIEs. Our asynchronous workshop gives you the six essential elements for Packways HIEs along with resources for improvement. At the end of the workshop, you’ll complete an HIE Action Plan. Once the plan is approved, your HIE will earn Packways Recognized status.

Packways Express is also an option for additional leaders of an HIE that is already Packways Recognized. An additional HIE Action Plan is not required.

Register Today! 

Packways Alums

Are you a faculty or staff member with Packways workshop experience? Do you want to submit another HIE for review? This group is for you! Our Packways Alums can achieve Packways Recognized status through our portal in REPORTER.

Submit Your HIE 
Student ASB group

Packways A+ (Coming Soon)

Advisors, do you want to connect your advisees with HIE opportunities? Just fill out our form, and we’ll share information when available. You can also join the Packways Community of Practice listserv to be the first to know about HIE news and opportunities.

Read more 

What to Expect in the Professional Development Pathway

  • Complete the workshop(s) (2–6 hours)
  • Submit your HIE Action Plan for approval (typically about 2 hours)
  • Conduct the HIE
  • Collect student reflections in the HIE
  • Submit student reflections when prompted by Packways each semester
  • Score 1–2 student reflections for QEP data each year
  • Optional — Attend Community of Practice events throughout the year

HIE Benefits

  • $2,000 additional supplement to Provost’s Award for High Impact Experiential Learning
  • Access to student enrichment funding
  • RPT/annual review support letters
  • Credly digital badges for programs
  • Promotional/marketing support
  • Critical reflection resources
  • Access to our Community of Practice
  • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research opportunities
  • $1,000 stipend for ABCs participants

FAQs

Becoming part of the Packways community demonstrates your commitment to a research-backed HIE framework and conveys numerous benefits.

Packways Express workshops can be completed in about 2-3 hours. Packways ABCs workshops can be completed in about 5-6 hours. The amount of time needed to complete the HIE Action Plan for either workshop option varies; it requires about 6 paragraphs describing how your HIE will align with the Packways Six Essential Elements.

Packways staff aim to review submitted HIE Action Plans within two weeks. Once the HIE Action Plan is approved, Packways Recognition is immediate.

The follow-up time commitment is minimal. You will submit your students’ critical reflections to Packways, and score 1-2 student reflections from a different HIE. You have the option to attend Community of Practice meetings twice a semester to network and problem-solve with other Packways practitioners.

Because the workshops rely heavily on active participation, recorded sessions are not available.

Roughly 100 student reflections will be randomly selected from all Packways Recognized HIEs. They will be anonymized, and each HIE Lead will score 1-2 reflections on the Packways Rubric. We will use these results to report Packways success to SACS. Your program will not be evaluated or reviewed based on student reflections.

We need to collect specific reflection data for the QEP Student Learning Outcomes. We provide an optional template that you can use as is, modify to meet your needs, or disregard, as long as your students address the QEP’s student learning outcomes.

Because our funding is limited, there is no stipend for completing the shorter Packways Express workshop. 

Packways issues a call for proposals once or twice a year through our listserv, which you will join in the workshops. You need to have a lower ledger 2 account to receive the funds, and they must be spent according to state-appropriated funds guidelines.

You can earn Packways recognition before the HIE is launched by conveying how you will design it to align with our framework.

Yes. There is no restriction on the number of HIEs one person can lead.

Yes. Many HIEs are not courses or are not for credit.

Only one leader is required to complete a Packways workshop, and only one HIE Action Plan is needed. Other leaders of the same HIE have the option to complete Packways Express without submitting an HIE Action Plan. 

After you complete Packways workshops, you can access the resources in the workshop Moodle space at any time.

Packways also serves as NC State’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) under the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), the university’s accrediting agency. Packways is designed not merely to satisfy an accreditation requirement, but also to build permanent institutional capacity around experiential learning that will continue serving students beyond the formal plan period.