The Brenton Center for Agricultural Instruction and Technology Transfer is the recipient of the Team Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University. The BCAIT team is led by Gaylan Scofield and consists of nine staff: Christina Carter, business administrator; Callie Gitch, marketing specialist; Casey Smith, student services specialist; Todd Vens, Lili Zhou and David DeHass, instructional designers; and Rod Fischer, Allison Kayser and Daniel Ossian, media production specialists. They provide service and support to more than 90 faculty in the college teaching more than 2,000 students enrolled in online courses through the college.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a challenge to convert all on-site college courses to remote instruction during a two-week period in March 2020, while working remotely. The demand for live streamed classes and webinar events from within and outside the college were numerous and handled successfully, along with the creation of spring virtual convocation. Summer brought more requests as faculty started making plans for fall. Brenton Center staff developed and delivered five virtual learning workshops to 170 faculty and staff in July. Staff also captured and delivered more than 100 labs for virtual delivery. The team continues to be an innovator in applying new technologies and innovative teaching techniques to courses taught by CALS faculty to deliver course content and enhance student interaction.