Jessica White Awarded for Outstanding Service in Instructional Design
DELTA Senior Instructional Designer Jessica White was recently honored with the Outstanding Service in Postsecondary Instructional Design Award from UPCEA, the online and professional education association.
The award was presented at the co-hosted 2024 UPCEA Summit for Online Leadership and Administration and the Distance Teaching & Learning conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
One of UPCEA’s highest individual honors, this award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of instructional design through service to the global community of online and professional instructors and learners. Celebrating the collaborative spirit of instructional design professionals, the award highlights the need for educators of all types to partner in support of advancing excellence in higher education.
White was nominated for the award by DELTA Vice Provost Donna Petherbridge. “Jessica is a thoughtful and skilled practitioner and researcher who is involved in innovative work in instructional design,” Petherbridge wrote in her nomination letter. “She has completed exemplary work for us across a number of projects.”
White joined DELTA in 2017 as an instructional designer (promoted to Senior Instructional Designer in 2022) with a unique dual appointment in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences. There, she established an instructional design assistance program for faculty wanting to transition their courses to a flipped, or hybrid, design.
In both departments, White provides design and project management knowledge that creates solutions to various instructional challenges. She enjoys the unique opportunity to apply the principles of instructional design practices across multiple modalities of the educational experience at NC State.
White also serves as an adjunct teaching assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development in the College of Education.
In her DELTA role, White is part of a larger team of e-learning specialists that includes designers, multimedia specialists, videographers, graphic artists and others who support instructional excellence across the university. Some of her notable projects as lead designer include Chemistry 222, in which students used a robotic arm to complete virtual organic chemistry labs, and a Counselor Education internship (ECD 652), in which students practice their counseling skills with the help of an interactive chatbot.
Before joining DELTA, White taught at a private college in Greensboro, North Carolina. She completed her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership at Keiser University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
When she’s not leveraging cutting-edge instructional tools for improved learning experiences or reimagining administrative processes for greater efficiency, White loves to travel and spend time with her family.
“Jessica is someone who cares very much about best practices and innovation in the instructional design space, and is truly a partner to the instructors she works with in support of student success,” said Petherbridge. “She is an exemplary designer and so deserving of this award.”
