Originally published on October 1, 2020
Little did Delton Daigle know as an 11-year-old paperboy in Calgary, Alberta, that one day his hanging out at the local computer store after making his rounds would lead to a job at a major 38,000-student American university. No, not as a professor—although he is that—but as a Director of Online Learning.
Daigle, who began as an assistant professor at the Schar School in 2011 and then an associate professor in 2019, was named the inaugural director of online learning in September by Dean Mark J. Rozell. The new position was created in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown that compelled the Schar School and George Mason University to put the vast majority of students in a distance learning environment.
Daigle’s experience with distance teaching compelled him to take the lead in helping faculty members overcome initial challenges in bringing their entire course load online in March when campuses were shut down. And if it were not for the movie “Office Space,” Daigle might have found a career in computers instead of teaching politics.
“As an undergrad while pursuing my BA in Politics from [Ontario’s] Brock University, I worked as a maître d' at a Niagara Falls hotel, quickly becoming the company food and beverage point-of-sale systems manager,” he said. That work involved being a programmer, designer, network expert, and hardware specialist.
Post-degree employment included work with computers. He was “a systems analyst at a major Montreal-based computer company that specialized in the development of full front and back office IT solutions for big retailers,” he said. Clients included FAO Schwartz, the Bellagio and Beau Rivage Casinos, and Lindt Chocolates. He also found work “supporting point-of-sales systems, installations, in-store and warehouse networking, credit card processing, inventory database maintenance, and analysis.”
After three years doing IT Daigle saw the 1999 black comedy, “Office Space,” which depicts a woeful portrait of life as an employee of a software company. The satire drove him back to “my love of politics, especially elections and campaign dynamics.”
But brushes with hardware and software continued to come to him. As a master’s student at Montreal’s McGill University Daigle was tapped to learn the new Learning Management System (LMS) called Canvass and help faculty get up to speed on the new technology. At the same time he worked with audio and video productions for large undergraduate lectures.
Coming to America and Ohio State University for another master’s degree and his PhD, Daigle found himself as a programmer in the survey research lab and eventually supervised the upgrade of the university’s survey data collection software—installed in the 1970s. He also taught sections at OSU that relied extensively on the new technology of LMS software.
At the Schar School in 2011, he used Blackboard extensively to teach his GOVT 300 course; after three years he applied for a grant to develop online resources to create a virtual version of the material. In 2014 he took a Mason online preparatory course for the university office now known as the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning, a hub for promoting teaching excellence and innovation.
In 2015, Daigle presented to the American Political Science Association methods, strategies, and findings of one of the first large-scale systematic comparisons of outcomes between face-to-face instruction and online learning in political science research methods. Three 2020 publications resulted.
Daigle continues to teach his GOVT 300 (research methods) and GOVT 300 and 313 (political psychology) courses. He is assisted in the online education duties by Graduate Professional Assistant and PhD student Jordan Cohen.