People and Community
The Extension School is able to fulfill its responsibilities and have a positive influence on individual students, campus education, and society at large thanks to the knowledge and commitment of its staff, as well as the valued partnerships with committed faculty members and outside partners.
More impact together
In the one year since becoming structurally part of the University Corporate Office, we have gone from strength to strength, focusing on developing our quality processes, reviewing and broadening the portfolio, and continuously improving the educational offer and learning experience for our customers.
Our organisational structure reflects the shared ownership between faculty and the Extension School, where faculty is responsible for the content and the Extension School for the processes and the monitoring of the quality of delivery. Our advisory and quality assurance bodies comprise both academic and industry members, allowing us to better align with faculty strategy and with external developments.
Appointments
New colleagues and board members joined the organisation, strengthening our teams and supporting the successful delivery of an increasing number of tasks and projects. One new learning developer and an administration officer joined the Education Support and Business Development teams respectively.
Ann van Dam, Head of Education & Student Affairs Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, joined the Strategy Board. Floor Bottemanne from the Head Office Continuing Education at Utrecht University joined the Quality Assurance Board.
The following persons took up responsibilities as Faculty Coordinators:
- Atefeh Aghaee for Architecture & the Built Environment
- Grazia Bastasin for QuTech
- Linda Otten for Civil Engineering & Geosciences.
To meet all current colleagues, visit our People page.
More support for lecturers
The Learning Experience Team (LET) that was set up in 2021 comprises trained teaching assistants who, upon request, support lecturers by centrally running and moderating their online courses (with the exclusion of Online Academic Courses), including taking care of learners' engagement, the course evaluation process, and the updating of specific materials: lecturers thus remain ultimately responsible for their course content, whilst being relieved of extra operational work. The team has grown in line with faculties' requests: at the end of 2022, 26 training assistants were supporting 64 course runs, nearly double than in the previous year.
QA Standards & Guidelines
We defined and published the Quality Standards & Indicators to guide and benchmark all our key activities. These comprise a full set of qualitative and quantitative pointers applicable to three levels: Institutional, Portfolio, and Course. The three-level approach allows us to better organize and execute the Extension School’s Quality Assurance System to guarantee a closer alignment with the existing quality culture, activities, and policies in place at TU Delft.
We are pleased to report that in our first survey on Quality & Workplace Culture, 80% of respondents rated the Extension School as having a good or excellent quality culture, with over 90% of staff feeling responsible for the quality of their work and for continuous improvements, and 93% recommending the organisation as a good place to work.
D&I statement
We have set a clear commitment to inclusive education by developing our vision on Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). It is strongly rooted in the importance we place on the diversity of our learners for whom we strive to create an equitable environment - where they feel welcomed and supported, and where everyone can fulfill their potential irrespective of contextual circumstances or personal profile. We aim to enrich the learning experience by offering an inclusive learning environment, stimulating learners’ creativity, and improving their performance. Our vision is aligned with the central TU Delft D&I Office and will translate into a number of concrete initiatives in the coming years.
Extension School for Continuing Education
Image credits (CC-BY): Thirdman on Pexels, Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash, Diana Light on Unsplash.