GTI Annual Report 2022-23

The Global Training Initiative at NC State is part of the Office of Global Engagement, which is the division that provides leadership in global initiatives, programs, and services for the University community, which is focused on expanding and supporting the university’s global activities, involvement, and impact.

The GTI develops custom short-term education and training opportunities for students and professionals from across the globe by leveraging the resources available at the university.

Our unit’s mission, goals and strategic plan support our division as well as the greater campus community and align with NC State’s current strategic plan, Wolfpack 2030: Powering the Extraordinary.

• The Developing Cultural Competence Student Certificate program is GTI’s flagship program for NC State students to interact with their peers from our partner institutions.
  • 394 students (including 154 from NC State) who completed all the requirements to earn the program certificate.
  • DCC certificate earners represented 22 countries.
  • GTI staff and trained graduate student facilitators conducted 15 DCC sessions from May 2022 through April 2023.
  • Colleges and departments supported students with sponsorships for the DCC program.
• In December 2022, two GTI staff took six NC State students to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and visited KAU for a weeklong cross-cultural exchange program sponsored by the US State Department where they participated in academic workshops and cultural excursions.

• Participation in the online GEARS academic research program continued to grow:
  • 321 students enrolled in the online program (a 22% increase over the previous year)
  • GEARS faculty mentors now include professors from UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Wilmington, NC Central University and Duke University
• King Abdulaziz University (KAU): In July 2022, KAU’s Department of Computer Science sent 30 students to spend the summer conducting research with NC State faculty.
• The GTI and NC State’s Computer Science department hosted five junior faculty from Egyptian universities in the summer of 2022.

• SKEMA Business School has been an integral part of NC State’s Centennial Campus since January 2011.
  • SKEMA Raleigh’s enrollment remained high for the 2022-23 academic year with 369 students in Fall 2022 and 483 in Spring 2023.
• GTI worked with our division partner, the Intensive English Program, to provide college preparatory workshops and activities for students from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Gifted Students Program.
  • The students all successfully gained admission to top-tier universities across the United States, including MIT, Berkeley, NYU, Purdue, UICU, and others.
• Colombia
  • Semilleros: Two cohorts of students came in October 2022 and June 2023 for 2-week high-impact culture and study visits, which included trips to Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, RTP, and Washington, DC.
  • The GTI also facilitated two cohorts of a 10-part series on bilingual education leadership that’s taught in Spanish to 100 administrators and teacher leaders in Bogotá, Colombia.
• GTI provided two concurrent hybrid professional training programs in Argentina for (1) a cohort of English teachers from around the country and (2) a group of agriculturalists who learned about innovation and sustainability.
  • Two of these program participants subsequently applied to NC State graduate programs as a result of this training and were both admitted for Fall 2023.
• The GTI administered and taught nine virtual programs to more than 450 students from overseas partner universities, covering a wide range of topics including entrepreneurship, data science, journalism, and project management.
• The third iteration of the English Language Training Certificate Program culminated in a two-day conference in Baku for more than 500 Azerbaijani secondary school English teachers.
  • About 100 teachers completed the 14-week online graduate-level program.
  • Almost 300 total certificate recipients since 2020.

The GTI’s global skills cross-cultural competency training portfolio continues to grow as more staff members have received additional certification and more entities are reaching out for cross-cultural training and expertise. The number of participants who have participated in GTI’s training has increased more than 65% since last year with more than 1,240 workshop and training participants this past academic year.

• On-Campus: GTI provided customized cross-cultural training in virtual reality for students from the Poole College of Management and the College of Engineering.
• Off-Campus: The GTI training team reached more than 500 professionals from companies and organizations like Lenovo, the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the NC Department of Agriculture, as well as Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources.
• The GTI team worked with faculty in SPIA to beta test the virtual reality videos with in-service law enforcement officers with new, high-quality VR headsets and received valuable feedback from all the groups. These VR videos were developed as part of the Governor’s Crime Commission grant awarded in 2022.
• The GTI also partnered again with NC State DELTA and the VR company Wonda VR to develop an AI-powered playground that builds from the characters that were first developed and introduced in the award-winning “First Impressions” 360-degree VR video.

The GTI is working closely with NUTech and Nagoya University to build out their Global Mini-Campus initiative at NC State which will facilitate a larger group of students coming for non-credit summer programs. During the spring of 2023, Nagoya opened its initial office on Centennial Campus to begin this expanded partnership with NC State.

Other key students programs include:

• Ryugaku: The in-person iteration of this program resumed at the beginning of the Fall 2022 semester when 20 undergraduate students from Nagoya University spent five weeks at NC State.
• Technical Communication: doctoral students from Nagoya and Gifu University participated in a virtual 5-week program.
• Global Entrepreneurship: 20 Japanese high school students from Nagoya University partners participated in a virtual month-long entrepreneurship program for the second year.