DELTA Signature Course Fellowship

Background: The DELTA Signature Course Model

What is a Signature Course?

A Signature Course is an innovative new course at an institution that includes these three areas of emphasis:

• Student transformation is at the center of the course design, content, and pedagogical focus.
  • A signature course is designed to be a defining, highly formative milestone of a student’s college career—one that directly challenges them to deeply grapple with fundamental questions of meaning and purpose.
• Institutional collaboration that adds value to the university ecosystem.
  • A successful signature course will contribute to the larger goals of the university and help shape a compelling vision for the future of higher education.
• Public engagement that extends the ideas, and ethos, of the course to wider audiences.
  • A successful signature course will design strategies to creatively connect major themes and insights of the course with audiences outside the university.
• For examples of Signature Courses in our first cohort, see our program page. 

What is the DELTA Signature Course model?

The rise of artificial intelligence has changed the landscape of the future, urging us to look beyond an “ethical floor” of safety and privacy and toward a deeper, faith-based approach rooted in Christian values. To meet this moment, our Institute developed DELTA—an acronym for Dignity, Embodiment, Love, Transcendence, and Agency—as a vision of human flourishing that can help orient our institutions, communities, and imaginations in a time of profound technological change. The DELTA framework provides a new lens for designing Signature Courses to help students make sense of their own sense of flourishing in light of such disruption.

DELTA Signature Courses should be guided by questions animated by these fundamental principles.

Dignity: Every human being possesses inherent worth—not because of productivity, intelligence, or economic value, but because they are made in the image of God. As Pope Leo XIV reminds us, “The person is not a system of algorithms.” In an age of comparison to machines, we must reaffirm that human dignity is non-negotiable.

Embodiment: We are embodied, relational, and mortal beings—our lives unfold in space, time, and community. Christian ethics centers the Incarnation: God takes on the vulnerability of human flesh. While technology can extend capabilities, it must not obscure the sacredness of human presence or diminish authentic experience. Policies must guide appropriate use in healthcare, education, and other areas where embodied life matters most.

Love: Christian ethics begins with love: a radical, unconditional call to see and serve others in their full humanity. Technologies like AI may simulate care or companionship, but cannot replace the messy, mutual, and grace-filled nature of real relationships. From social media to chatbots, we must evaluate technologies based on whether they foster compassion—or distort it. Emerging adults, in particular, need space for genuine formation and human connection.

Transcendence: Not everything of value can be created, optimized, or sold. Wonder, beauty, truth, and gratitude draw us beyond ourselves to rejoice in the gifts that God gives us. As technology unlocks new forms of creativity, Christians must resist the temptation to confuse innovation with ultimate meaning. We must nurture practices—like worship, contemplation, and awe—that root us in something higher than the digital.

Agency: To flourish, humans need to pay attention and exercise freedom and moral responsibility. The Christian tradition teaches that agency is not just task completion, but the capacity to choose truth and good. As technological systems suggest, filter, and even act for us, it is vital to guard the kinds of decisions only human consciences should make. Discernment and virtue must be taught alongside technological fluency.

To that end, the possibilities for a DELTA Signature Course are intentionally broad. We anticipate a wide variety of disciplinary approaches, a diverse set of questions exploring these key ideas, and many creative concepts for course structure/delivery. We welcome courses from a variety of disciplines and moral traditions.

Program Details

Program Timeline and Funding

Selection

• December 15, 2026: Fellowship Selection Notifications

Phase One: Design

• June 7–June 25, 2027: Project Launch Residency at Notre Dame (three weeks)

• Vision-setting, workshops with key facilitators, develop course assets, work with your selected student intern

• Fall 2027: Course Build

• Benchmarking, institutional collaboration, evaluation strategy

Phase Two: Pre-Launch

• Spring 2028: Course Build

• Pre-launch campaign, public engagement strategy

• June 2028: Summative Conference at Notre Dame (2–3 days)

• Share best practices, feedback, meet incoming fellows

Phase Three: Launch, Scale, Improve

• Fall 2028–Spring 2029: Course Launch, scaling up student numbers, and using student evaluations to improve future iterations

Funding and Support

• Course launch funds: $25,000

  • These funds are intended to support course design and build (for example, public-facing website, video development, benchmarking, guest speakers, supplies, etc.)

• Stipend: $20,000 total for the duration of the fellowship period

• Travel/housing stipends included for Project Launch Residency and Summative Conference

  • Up to $800 in flights for each event

  • $1,500 in housing for the Residency

  • Hotels covered for Summative Conference

• Undergraduate Intern funding: $5,000

  • Funds will cover student travel to Project Launch Residency

  • Funds to have them work on course development alongside you during the academic year

• ECG staff resourcing, program evaluation, and communication campaign around the Signature Courses

Eligibility

• Applicants must hold a full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty appointment

• Applicants from all academic disciplines are encouraged to apply, including—but not limited to—philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, political science, computer science, law, literature, and the arts.

• The majority of fellowships will be awarded to scholars external to the University of Notre Dame. However, Notre Dame faculty are eligible to apply, and a limited number of fellowships may be awarded to applicants from within the university.

• We also welcome applications from scholars from a variety of faith and cultural traditions.

Expectations

• Signature Course faculty fellows attend the full Project Launch Residency, residing on or near the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana, from Monday, June 7 to Friday, June 25, 2027

• Attend the Summative Conference held at Notre Dame in June 2028

• Faculty select an undergraduate student intern to attend the full Project Launch Residency and to work with them on their course throughout the academic year

• Faculty complete three written self-evaluative studies

• Faculty maintain communication with Institute staff during all phases of course development and launch

• Faculty commit to launching their course in Academic Year 2028–2029

• Faculty commit—with clear institutional support/permission via a letter of commitment—to teach the new course at least three times over three academic years at their respective institutions

Applications

Application Requirements

• Applications for the DELTA Signature Course Fellowship must be submitted through the Application Portal and should include the following:

  • A description of your course, including background and key course themes

  • How your course is guided and informed by DELTA principles, or explore significant questions raised by rising technologies and AI disruption

  • Draft learning objectives, including 2–3 student development goals that speak to the transformative aspirations for your students, including how they grapple with larger questions of meaning and purpose in their lives

  • How your course fulfills any unmet needs at your institution, or how your course will complement existing mission and ethos; and

  • Your initial sense of how you will communicate your course themes to a public audience

• Completed application form

• Cover letter

• Curriculum vitae (no more than four pages, single spaced)

• Signature Course Proposal (no more than six pages, double spaced), including the following:

• Two letters of reference and one student recommendation letter. The letters of reference should address the strength of the applicant’s proposed signature course, its fit with DELTA framework, and the faculty member’s demonstrated dedication to teaching. The student recommendation letter should be written by a student and should address the faculty member's demonstrated dedication to teaching.

Proposals will be holistically evaluated on the basis of the faculty member’s demonstrated commitment to teaching, the proposed course’s potential for student transformation, institutional impact, and public engagement, as well as the proposed course’s alignment with DELTA themes and questions.

Finalists will be asked to be available for a Zoom interview with committee members during the final stage of the selection process.