December 2018 Announcements

• Commencement for Summer and Fall 2018 graduates will be held on Wednesday, December 19, at 9 a.m., at PNC Arena. A concert by the Amalgam Brass Ensemble will begin at 8:30 a.m. Christine Mann Darden, retired NASA executive, will be giving the commencement address. View the complete schedule of departmental ceremonies taking place Wednesday, December 19 and Thursday, December 20.
• Important changes are coming for faculty and students who utilize DELTA Testing Services. Effective at the start of the spring 2019 semester, all testing will be by appointment only. Faculty who use DELTA Testing Services should update their syllabus statement to alert students of the change. View a suggested statement to add to a syllabus. View all changes being implemented soon.
• If you print your course packs through Wolf Xpress, send your files by December 21 to ensure they are on the shelves for your students when they arrive in January. Choose from a variety of binding options and formats, plus, Wolf Xpress will provide desk copies, free of charge. They will even help with copyright clearance and provide a suggested retail price. Once they are printed, the course packs will be delivered directly to Wolfpack Outfitters for sale. Submit your files by visiting https://go.ncsu.edu/coursepacks. Call Teri Hellmann at 919.515.2131 for additional assistance or stop by their office on the main level of Talley Student Union.
• NC State encourages all students completing their doctoral or master’s degree this semester to participate in the Graduate Future Plans Survey. This brief survey collects important information on students’ plans following graduation. Graduating seniors are invited to complete the undergraduate survey. Information about and results from past administrations of the surveys is available on the OIRP website.
• Nominations for the Outstanding Extension Awards and Outstanding Engagement Awards are now open. These awards are to encourage and recognize members of the faculty and EHRA staff who are nominated and selected by their respective colleagues, schools or units on campus for their outstanding contributions to extension and engagement. The full awards process and timeline can be found here: 2018 OEA Criteria and Guidelines. Submit nomination letters via this form. The deadline for nominations is January 18, 2019. Send questions or comments about the process or the nomination form to Samantha Graham at sjgraha2@ncsu.edu.
• Nominations are now being accepted for the 2018-19 Gertrude Cox Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching and Learning with Technology. The deadline for nomination submission is January 25, 2019. As the use of technology in teaching and learning changes, this award adapts to reflect those changes. Please visit the Cox Award website to learn about the updates in criteria and eligibility, required application materials and award recognition. For more information, please contact Judy Austin in the Office of Faculty Development at jcaustin@ncsu.edu or at 919-513-3636.
• Faculty and staff can receive a flu shot from Student Health at an on-campus flu clinic or at the Student Health pharmacy without an appointment. Faculty and staff are encouraged to take part in the NC State vs. Chapel Hill Flu Shot Challenge by filling out a survey after they receive a flu shot on campus.
• If you’re a member of the Wolfpack community who has won an award or honor — or if you know someone who has — University Communications and Marketing would love to hear about it. Please use this form to make a submission.
• As part of the university’s holiday energy savings initiative, Chancellor Woodson has approved the modification of NC State’s 2018 university official holidays and closings calendar to also close the university on Monday, Dec. 31. Employees will be required to use comp time, annual leave, bonus leave or special bonus leave for this day during the 2018 holiday break. If the employee has no leave available to use, he or she can submit a request for leave without pay. For information on the holiday energy savings initiative, please visit Energy Management’s Holiday Energy Saving Initiative site. For questions regarding the 2018 university official holidays and closings calendar, please contact Benefits, Employee Wellness and Work Life at hrsbenefits@ncsu.edu.
• The Provost’s Office is looking for faculty contributors to the monthly Pack Hacks for Faculty column. Each month, a faculty member gives various insights to facilitate teaching, research, scholarship and engagement activities. You can find examples of past articles here, as well as submission guidelines. If you are interested, please submit your information and ideas via this form. Please direct any questions about Pack Hacks to provost-communications@ncsu.edu.

From the Office of Assessment:

• Each year, every academic program offering a degree or certificate is evaluated by its faculty to improve the effectiveness of the program. We periodically highlight examples of what a selected program has done to become even stronger. One of the outcomes assessed by the graduate program in architecture in spring 2018 was students’ ability to “use architectural and environmental principles in design.” To determine the effectiveness of the program in enabling students to achieve that outcome, faculty reviewed student projects produced in ARC 500, Architectural Design:  Professional Studio. The findings showed that though 100 percent of the students demonstrated mastery of the basics of environmental principles in their designs, only 16 percent showed that they were aware of the green building rating system that is used for evaluating the designs. To address this area for improvement, the faculty decided to include this rating system as a part of measuring sustainability in the built environment and to urge students to take other courses that address green building design.

From the Office of Faculty Development:

• NC State faculty and professional staff are invited to submit poster and session proposals for the 2019 Teaching and Learning Symposium. The Symposium will be held Thursday, February 28, 2019, at the McKimmon Center, and will also include concurrent sessions and a keynote address. Proposals can deal with a wide variety of topics, including teaching with technology, innovative pedagogical techniques, creativity in teaching and learning, SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), Scholarship of Community Engagement projects, sustainability in teaching, and more. Presenters can make poster submissions at go.ncsu.edu/symposiumposters. Submissions are due by 5 p.m. Wednesday, January 9, 2019. Session proposals should be submitted to Diane Chapman at ddchapma@ncsu.edu by December 19. Questions may be directed to Jonathan Holloway (jphollow@ncsu.edu).
• Registration is now open for Spring 2019 Reading Circles. OFD now provides both face-to-face and virtual (online, asynchronous) meetings to discuss the books. Please register by Thursday, December 13 at noon using the form at: https://go.ncsu.edu/readingcircles. Circles will begin meeting in mid-January. For more information about the texts and the Reading Circle program, visit: https://ofd.ncsu.edu/events-and-programs/reading-circles/. The face-to-face texts are: Agile Faculty: Practical Strategies for Managing Research, Service, and Teaching by Rebecca Pope-Ruark; and Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity by Keith Sawyer. The Virtual Reading Circle (VRC) texts are: Creating Wicked Students: Designing Courses for a Complex World by Paul Hanstedt; and Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James M. Lang.
• NC State faculty are invited to apply for the RED Core Teaching Certification |CTC| beginning spring 2019. The CTC:
  • provides instructors the opportunity to learn pedagogical skills and information about teaching not necessarily gained during formal training in graduate school, helping them become more scholarly teachers;
  • allows instructors to gain recognition for their efforts to become more intentional, reflective teachers who incorporate best practices in teaching in higher education; and
  • affords faculty members the opportunity to meet other faculty members outside their home departments who are dedicated to improving their teaching.

Faculty participants refine and enhance their courses through the completion of one (1) learning module and reflective activities in five core competencies: reflective teaching, instructional design, assessment of student learning, student-centered teaching, and assessment of teaching. There are a variety of modules from which to choose, offered both face-to-face and online. For more information, please visit go.ncsu.edu/red-ctc.