The Kansas State University IGP Institute’s recently named Brandi Miller as its associate director. Along with her administrative duties she will continue in her role as the distance education program coordinator.
“Under Brandi’s leadership the distance education program has grown significantly. We are excited to have Brandi’s innovative ideas for capitalizing on the grain science faculty strengths and fully leveraging the IGP Institute team to increase our global impact,” says Gordon Smith, IGP Institute director and grain science and industry department head.
Miller joined the institute in January of 2010. Since she began, the distance education offering has grown from 9 courses in 2010 to 42 in 2016. She was promoted to assistant director in September 2014 to assume some of the administrative duties of a growing IGP Institute program, and then in November 2015 she was named interim associate director.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in bakery science and management and master’s degree in adult, occupational and continuing education. Both degrees were obtained at Kansas State University.
In regard to her new role, Miller says, “I am excited help our current staff to capitalize on their strengths to further support our courses and the faculty initiatives more fully.”
For example, in distance education both she and Trina Adams hold advanced degrees in adult learning. Miller hopes this knowledge can be transferred beyond the distance curriculum and applied to the on-site courses as well. Miller’s vision is that of a coordinated effort where the IGP Institute is delivering the innovative trainings in a way that best serves course participants.
“The value of teaching adults is that they have life experiences so the key is to relate our course information to something they already know,” Miller says. Along with that, Miller hopes to leverage the Kansas State grain science faculty to bring new courses to the IGP Institute. This will be done by following the direction set by the IGP stakeholders and matching that vision with the faculty expertise.
“We really need to listen to what the stakeholders are telling us and take their direction moving forward,” Miller says.
As part of the process of setting the direction for the future, the IGP Institute will be hosting focus groups with staff, faculty and our stakeholder partners. After that process is complete, Miller hopes “we have a clear vision of who we are so we can set the path moving ahead.”
