A Slice with 'Dice
A Slice with ’Dice is a weekly podcast exploring leadership, talent development, and the human side of high-performing systems. Drawing on decades of experience in gifted education and public leadership, host Corey Alderdice examines how institutions identify potential, navigate change, and create cultures where people can thrive. Each episode blends thoughtful reflection with practical insight for educators, leaders, and anyone interested in how talent and transformation intersect in real-world settings.
Episodes
143 episodes
Rebuilding Trust in Colleges Isn’t a PR Problem
Higher education doesn’t have a messaging problem—it has a trust problem. And the more openly institutions acknowledge that reality, the more complicated the path forward becomes.Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and tra...
Teacher Appreciation Week Got Meme-ed by the US Dept. of Education
A Teacher Appreciation Week meme campaign from the U.S. Department of Education may have been designed for engagement, but its fictional teacher choices revealed something deeper about how educators are feeling right now. Beneath the nostalg...
Not Faster—Fuller: What Early College Credit Makes Possible
Curiosity isn’t disappearing from higher education—it’s being squeezed by cost, structure, and the pressure to get it right the first time. But what if the very tools designed to accelerate students could instead give that curiosity room to ...
STARS College Network and the Future of Rural Talent
Some students grow up surrounded by opportunity so constantly that college feels like the next obvious step. For many small-town and rural students, though, the challenge is not a lack of talent, but the quieter difficulty of seeing ambitiou...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part III): Choice, Scale, and the Obligation to Design
Belonging cannot be a boutique advantage.If mentorship, purpose, depth, and engagement truly predict long-term success, then designing for belonging isn’t a marketing strategy — it’s a moral obligation.Corey Alderdice, a na...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part II): Designing for S.P.A.C.E.
Schedule is never just about time. Assessment is never just about grades. If belonging truly predicts thriving, then the real question is whether our systems are aligned to produce it.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent an...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part I): The Six Experiences That Predict Success
Belonging isn’t a soft idea. It’s a structural one.What if the strongest predictors of long-term success in college — and life — have less to do with prestige and more to do with experience?Corey Alderdice, a nationa...
Maxxed Out: Young Men, Old Scripts, and New Pressures
Masculinity is being optimized, marketed, and polarized in real time. But what if the real work is slower and more integrated?Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explores the modern crisis among young m...
What Phone Policies Say About the Schools We’re Building
A ringing phone. A Saturday school. A moment that opens up a much bigger conversation about rules, responsibility, and what schools are really trying to protect.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explo...
Nunchi: The Quiet Superpower Every Teen Needs
What if one of the most powerful skills a teenager could develop didn’t come from textbooks or test prep, but from the ability to quietly read the room? In Korean culture, this skill is called nunchi—a subtle kind of s...
Creative Capital: Investing in Arts Education
Creativity isn’t enrichment. It’s infrastructure. And if we misunderstand that, we misunderstand the future of our economy.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explores why arts education must be reframe...
Coming Soon: Belonging in Schools Isn't Accidental
Why does belonging matter so much for student success?In this teaser, Corey Alderdice introduces a three-part series exploring the role of belonging in education, beginning with research from Gallup and Purdue showing its connecti...
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Designing for More: Abundance and the Future of Schools
The word abundance surged into the spotlight in 2025, not because schools suddenly had more time, energy, or flexibility—but because educators sensed that something in our systems was no longer keeping pace with human ...
Jonathan Livingston Seagull And The Way Texts Grow With Us
Some books don’t just age well—they grow with us. What feels like a simple story in adolescence can become something far more layered when revisited with experience.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, e...
The Leadership Dividend
Leadership doesn’t end when the account runs dry—it continues through the returns others generate from your investment. In this final installment of the trilogy, Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation,...
Walkouts, Conviction, and Constraints
When students walk out of class in protest, it can look simple from the outside: young people raising their voices in a democracy. Inside a school, however, those moments are layered with legal guardrails, legislative constraints, and the ob...
Why Gifted Students Need a Mattering Mindset More Than More Achievement
Achievement often overshadows everything else in the lives of gifted and talented students. But what if their deepest need isn’t to achieve more, but to know they truly matter? Drawing on the work of Jennifer Breheny Wallace and the psycholo...
Joy Is a Strategy: Why Educators Can’t Afford to Miss the Glimmers
A single sharp moment can hijack an entire school day—but it doesn’t have to. What if educators got just as intentional about what lifts students up as we are about what sets them off?Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent an...
Leadership’s Second Balance Sheet
Leaders spend their days managing visible accounts—trust, goodwill, and influence—but the balance that truly determines their longevity is often hidden from view. Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation...
Smart Isn’t Enough: Decoding the Hidden Curriculum
Some lessons never make it into the textbook—but they can make or break a student’s future. The most gifted learners often know the material, but not the system that surrounds it.Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and tra...
You're Not Lost—You're Early: A Guide to the Quarterlife Crisis
Early adulthood was supposed to feel like launch—but for many seniors, it feels more like freefall. That unsettling mix of possibility and pressure has a name, and understanding it is the first step toward feeling less alone. Cor...
Rest, Reflect, Recalibrate: A Winter Break Blueprint for Juniors
Winter break offers juniors something they rarely get during the school year: breathing room. Amid the quiet, students can take their first meaningful steps toward understanding who they are and what they want from the college journey ahead....
ENCORE: The Semester Debrief - Family Conversations for Growth and Goal-Setting
Some conversations age well because the need behind them never really goes away. As students and schools end the fall semester gear up for a new semester in 2026, this encore episode arrives at exactly the right moment.ASMSA Executive...
The Catalytic Agency Model of Talent Development in 10 Minutes
Gifted students don’t disengage because they don’t care—they disengage because they’re ready for more than their environment is offering. When we learn to interpret dissatisfaction as a signal instead of a problem, everything about how we se...
Why Bacon Belongs on the Christmas Tree
The smell of bacon has a way of pulling people out of their rooms and into the same shared space, no invitation required. In this special, Christmas-themed episode, a glitter-covered strip of bacon hanging on a tree becomes a surprisingly fi...