Ep. 15 - A "Just Us" Episode

🎙️ New Year, Same Pickup Energy

It’s 2026! In the first Just Us episode of the year, Kevin and Brody kick things off with sharp banter, real talk, and the kind of spirited disagreement that only longtime co-hosts can survive.

This episode zigzags delightfully through end-of-semester chaos and post-holiday limbo. But beneath the laughs is a powerful conversation about higher education, advising, and the quiet, life-altering magic of a single 30-minute meeting.

Press play, settle in for 30 minutes, and welcome to The Pickup Meeting in 2026. Do good. Be nice. 

*The Pickup Meeting is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook! Also, subscribe to the Adventures in Advising YouTube Channel!

Have a question? Want to chat? E-mail us at thepickupmeeting@gmail.com!

Connect with Brody and Kevin on LinkedIn. 

Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
And away we go. Welcome to The Pickup Meeting. It's a Just Us episode Brody. The first just us. Episode of 2026. For our audience, right? We've been, we've been talking about this. If you happen to be listening for one of the first times you're you're listening or watching, depending on what you're you're partaking of here, two unbelievably good looking guys talking about all things life, higher education and just having a great time on a 30 minute just us episode of The Pickup Meeting.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah. And the good news is, if you can't stand this, you only have to kind of deal with us for 30 minutes without a guest, right?

Kevin Thomas  
Good. Other good news, if you're not watching on YouTube, you don't know if the good looking part is real or not.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Equally fair. And you also don't know that, prior to us coming onto the air, that it doesn't sound like we're best friends, it sounds like we're mortal enemies.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, today was a pretty high bicker day. I don't need to do that. Today's a pretty high bicker day between you and I on a variety of things and and I think it's just because, as we're recording, this life is flying at us. Yes, end of the semester stuff, end of the semester stuff for an episode that will release in January. And we, you know, we haven't really had this conversation that in 2026 our episodes are evolving. So essentially, if you're listening to this episode, last week's episode was with Kerry Kincanon. And then this week is the second episode in the new year, and we will be going weekly, and every other week there will be a just us episode. And so we're excited to spend more time with you as our audience in 2026 and sometimes we're excited to spend more time together as cohosts. Yes, maybe today is not one of those days. Maybe today is not one of those days.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, I was a couple seconds late, right? And I was telling Matt and you like, I'm just racked and stacked today. I'm walking across campus doing my real job, trying to get stuff done.

Kevin Thomas  
You use some expletives in there too, but yes, racked and stacked. Yes, that's a word in phrasing I've never used before. Where did that come from? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Maybe Die Hard to I don't know. Like when the planes are all kind of flying in at the same time. I could be wrong. I often am, Kevin, I often am 

Kevin Thomas  
Wrong? Yes, I know your wife tells me a lot of times that you're wrong. So one of the things that I thought was interesting in from a topic standpoint today is, and I think about this every year, higher education we like at the institutions we worked at, are incredibly blessed that we get a pretty fair amount of time off and and that's a real benefit of the job. I know there are institutions that have medical schools and medical facilities attached, and so they may not get all that time often, but it's just, it's a great benefit. But the timeframe right as we, like, rush to Christmas, and then right after Christmas, like December 26 to January to like, what is that timeframe like? I just feel like it's like, this lost world of is this what retirement is when you don't know what day it is when you wake up?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Maybe, I think that's a possibility. Kevin, I have the added bonus, like this time frame used to be kind of really relaxing, and then my second kid was born the day after Christmas, literally six hours after Christmas. And so now I've got, I've got my youngest daughter's birthday is the day after Christmas, and for the first 13 or 14 years, you know, you you work really hard to separate out Christmas gifts with birthday gifts. I kind of feel bad for now, because now it's like, we throw the extra gift at her, and we're like, good luck kid. 

Kevin Thomas  
Instead of figuring this amount, we spend this amount, plus another 100 bucks or something like that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, yeah. And so we add that to the mix, right? So it's one more day of being with family and trying to coordinate an activity. And so it's even one less day of rest, really.

Kevin Thomas  
So did you get to a point where you just you celebrate Christmas, and then you take the tree down, and then you put out all the birthday stuff and just transition in that way.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
No, it wasn't like that. It was really more about bringing everybody together. Like, you know, when, when your kids small, like, those birthdays matter. And so, you know, you had to, had to have another meal, right? You had to coordinate the the. Grandparents getting there and making sure that they had their gifts ready to go. It was and, look, I don't regret any of it. It was super fun, but at some point in time it got a lot harder.

Kevin Thomas  
No question. I feel like you said, it's when you're young, the birthdays matter. And my first thought was, like when you were young, the birthdays matter, and when you're old, the birthdays matter in between. It's just a mess and...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
But like, Maybe Matt won't have, maybe Matt won't have to edit this out right the middle birthdays. They don't matter that much.

Kevin Thomas  
They don't like some of us like them. Some of us don't. Some of us celebrate a birthday month. Some of us don't even celebrate the day. Yeah, just what it is. Hey. So we're talking decorations here. And listen, this is speculation, but we're middle of January as this is being released. Will the decorations still be up in your house from the holiday season?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I have a confession to make, Kevin, and you may or may not like this, but like, we didn't do Christmas decorations the last two years. We haven't done them, like, I don't have a...

Kevin Thomas  
Scrooge, like, what is wrong? You know, they have, like, little mini artificial trees, like, we go to Disney in December, and my wife brings a little mini tree.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Catherine bought this massive tree right before we moved to Illinois, for like, 15 bucks, and this thing is enormous, and I have really high ceilings in my new house, and I'm like, God, that's so much work. That's like, yes, it is so much work. We need a much smaller tree, so we were at least in agreement to not do it. So no, the holiday decorations will not still be up, because they never went up two years in a row.

Kevin Thomas  
And the neighbors are talking about you. They're like, Oh, who are these people that moved in?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
My kids used to joke because I wouldn't put lights out because I didn't want to get on a ladder. And they used to kind of call me The Grinch, right? Like, or, or maybe useless. Either way was good. Uh, is, are your decorations still going to be up in the middle of January?

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, for sure, they'll still be up. Like, it like, really, we'll push this thing, and my wife is leading part of this. We'll push this to January, 20 timeframe that'll happen.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Like, I grew up Catholic, and my mom, I think, is still the most Catholic person I know. And so, like, epiphany, which was, like, the, I don't know, January 6 was, like, the day that all of that stuff had to come down right, like, but I have no hard date or time. Usually it was just when we had time before the school year got going again.

Kevin Thomas  
I always hate how it all looks after you've taken it down, like where your house just feels empty, because it's just been filled with trees and decorations and color, and not that your house doesn't have color, but like, it's just it's less seasonal, and it just feels so empty, kind of like our soul today. No, there's nothing going on here. Hey, this is a jump back. Producer Matt says that stack them, pack them and rack them comes from the airport control tower and die hard too. So I'm kind of right you. Fred Thompson delivered the line as Senator Arthur Branch, look at that. I'm killing it today. You are Listen. Your day is going in the right direction. You are right and less wrong. Yes. So one of the things that I know we have coming up is for a writing you're doing, you're doing a topic, talking about the power of the 30 minute meeting.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, how you feel about it? I so I feel good, you know, Kevin, we were talking about this with Marsha, and both of us kind of took on the challenge of writing, and now Matt's given us, kind of with the Academic Advising Quarterly, kind of this opportunity to kind of spin our wheels and do some things and and we've talked about this on the podcast before, right? I think that given the complexity of our work and how hard advising has become right, like the integration of all the systems and kind of peddling and information that we've forgotten about, the power of the 30 minute meeting. And so I'm really going to write about that, and the story I'm going to use to kind of begin the article is, is a kind of this surreal moment where a colleague came up to me, a participant at a conference that I was keynoting about 10 years ago, and said, Yeah, my boss saw that you're keynoting, and she wanted me to tell you that you changed her life. And I'm like, that's amazing. Who is it? And. Yeah, and she gave me, he gave me the name of the person, and I'm like, I have no idea who you're talking about or where this interaction happened. Man, you have an impact, yes. And so this is what I did. I said I need to know, right? Like, I need to know who this was. And so I followed up with her. I sent her a message on LinkedIn, and we chatted through email, and she said, you know, it wasn't, I don't really even remember the content of the meeting, other than I didn't really want to be a music major anymore, even though I loved music, and you just sat down and you helped me kind of figure out how I was going to tell my parents about that you you listened. You said everything was going to be okay, and just the way you made me feel, gave me the permission to kind of pursue some other things, and it just made a huge difference in my life. I only met with you that one time. We didn't even talk about classes or what, and it just blew my mind, right? That 15 years later, 20 years later, this student still remembered the way that I made her feel in that 30 minute meeting. And so that's really kind of the focus of the article. And I've had several students that I've interacted with in my time. I think we all have this right like and if you don't, or if you do, you should really be marking those moments as important moments, because we don't always think about the work in 30 minute increments, even though that's the majority of the work that we do. But how we approach that 30 minute meeting really matters to every single student that we come into interaction with.

Kevin Thomas  
And I think chances are you said, you know, for those folks that do or don't remember those moments, like even in this case, you wouldn't have been able to recall it, you were having that impact. You were having that power of influence and conversation, and you didn't even realize that power and influence was occurring, yeah.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And I think the research kind of supports the importance of this. I think advisors generally want to spend less time on say, you know, the minutia of course scheduling, of course, that's our work, right? Students even expect us to aid them in registration, right? That's part of what an academic advisor does, but a lot of the research says, Hey, advisors would much rather, you know, spend time talking about life goals, getting to know the students better, connecting the students program interests into career related experiences, helping them with personal and career goals, right? Like, I think all of all students really want that as a part I mean, students say that the personal relationships they develop with faculty and staff are the most meaningful part of their college experience. So we have to remember that when we come into those 30 minute meetings with every single student that we're interacting with.

Kevin Thomas  
And from the article that I wrote for the first episode, our first edition of that that was put together, it was about advisors as artists. And really, what you're talking about in that realm of influence that you had was an art and, you know, it's like, it's the courses are always a part of the conversation.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's always a part of the conversation. Always a part, right?

Kevin Thomas  
But if they are, the meal you're doing, advising wrong? Yes, right? And in this case, like the courses were a part of the conversation, but the meal was, how is this going to impact life? How do I have these conversations? How do I make these decisions? You know, that's, that's pretty that's pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to reading the article.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
You know, like, and it happens. These kinds of things happen all the time. I'm on Facebook still, because I'm an old person, right? Like, five years old, yeah. And one of the things I really like to do is to say happy birthday to the people whose birthdays pop up on my feed from time to time. And I have a student who I taught in one of my first year experience courses at the University of Southern Indiana, maybe 15 years ago, so like, 2010 2011 and this student didn't make it at USI. He dropped out, and then I think he had some personal struggles, but I sent him a birthday message last month, and he messaged me, and in the message, he said, you know, man, I really appreciate that you send me this birthday message, and you should know that I didn't graduate from college, but I'm a productive citizen right now, and I'm really proud of the work that I do in insurance, and you were the only person that ever really believed in me, right as an instructor and as an advisor. And I just want you to know I really appreciated that, like those things are happening all the time, and we have to hold on to those moments whenever they come.

Kevin Thomas  
Absolutely I, as I said. You're talking about the 30 minute meeting and and maybe this is some of a transition to our role as administrators. When was the last time? This is just being blunt and transparent. When was the last time you advise the student? Curricularly? Oh, that's a fun word. Curricularly, yeah, like not that, because I think we always, we still advise as we work with students, but like, actually with the curriculum, like you're doing the advising.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think every semester that I taught a First Year Experience course, so probably the fall of 2022, I was still helping the students in my first year experience course. Think about what courses they were taking, and I would meet with them individually. They were usually exploratory students. So, you know, I would meet with them, and then we do, there was a four year planning exercise that we did in the class. So I'd say the fall of 2022, was probably the last time. Wow, that's great.

Kevin Thomas  
How about you? I think for me it would, probably would have been summer of 2012 which is where I'm at as a reflection of in order to be a better administrator, I want to sit in the chair and experience that advising appointment again, you know, and not that I can. I don't think I curricular wise. I don't think I can, I can do that at this moment. I don't know those layers and avenues well enough right now, but I also, you know, you were talking about the various systems and all the things going on, and it's, it's like, you know, what if I need to be the best administrator I can be, I probably need to understand more of those nuts and bolts of how these appointments are going. And so I think my charge to self here is going to be to sit in a few advising appointments and just experience how that works, or talk through the prep or talk through the end game, because it's been 14 years, almost 14 years.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, you know, the unit that I oversee is about 50 to 60 folks. And one of the things that I was really happy I did when I started was to sit down with every single person. They're about 25 to 28 advisors in university, college advising, and I sat down with each and every one of them. And when I first got here, and I've tried to do that once a year, and just hear what's good, what could be different, and how could we make it better in terms of advising practice? And I do think right as institutions, we sometimes make it harder for advisors to have those conversations, especially if our systems are broken or not updated, or if we've got advisors in in too many spaces. Those are things that as an administrator now, I think about a lot, like, how do we make it so that advisors can do and have those conversations? And to me now, like, I don't know Illinois state's curriculum very well at all right? Like I wouldn't be able to sit into a meeting and and and the kind of information we need in our systems would make that a real big task, like, I'd have a semester of work I'd need to do to kind of be able to to jump in and be an academic advisor for first year students at Illinois State, I think. But, but as administrators, how do we, how do we facilitate the administration of advising so that that advisors can have more of those conversations that are real, meaningful and focused on life and career goals.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, and I think, from from my perspective, too, I don't want to sit and we just, we did a transition here from one system to essentially, we're building a Student Success Platform in Slate and there's been some growing pains in that, and I've very quickly had to say, hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. We're going to get there. It's going to take a little time. But I don't know that I have the full understanding of impact that I've provided advisors. I feel like I need to know that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, that's great. I think that's a great I think that's a great approach to the work, no doubt.

Kevin Thomas  
Well, I think anytime you can invite administrators, and in this case, I'm inviting myself, you're welcome advisors at UCA. Anytime you can, as an administrator leader, invite people to administrators at whatever level to experience something different than their norm. I think that provides some perspective when I got here. You know, a lot of folks said this is what advising is. And I encouraged deans to sit in advising appointments with their students during orientation, and it's like, go and see like go and experience that. You know, campus tours occur on our campus, and people always have feedback on what should or shouldn't be said on a campus tour, we invited cabinet, and cabinet went on a campus tour with a student, not like a special one, like we just randomly picked it, and here you go, student. This is this tour ambassador. This is the group you get today. And just here's the tour experience, so that they have a good understanding of what's happening when they hear in the community, and they hear from friends and family and all the things going on. I you know, I think those experiences can be transformational for administrators that they typically don't get to experience that because they're in a variety of meetings or, sorry, they're having a stack them, pack them and rack them. See what I did there. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I love that. Kevin, so there's one other thing about the 30 minute meeting that we haven't talked about, that I want to kind of speak to, and that is every student deserves our best in those 30 minutes. I think we sometimes forget that, right? Like, I think it's easy for us to interact with the good students that come to those meetings, prepared or performing well academically. I think it gets easy for us to think of students less than if their GPA is lower, or if they're struggling academically, or if they're challenging, like maybe they haven't shown up a couple of times when they've scheduled a meeting. And I want us to remember as a community, every student deserves our best effort, right, congruence, positive regard and empathy. That's the Huey article, right? Like every student deserves that, not just the best ones, right, every student.

Kevin Thomas  
And I think that some of the most consistent and solid advisors I've ever worked with. Remember this is that it may be the 350th time you've talked about the general education curriculum in a semester, but to that student, it's the first absolutely and so how you sell it, how you talk about it, how you share the curriculum that's there, I think, is really dependent on the advisor, remembering it's the first time. Yeah, dream scenario. This is my dream scenario. Is, if we could get to a way for course, descriptions to be like movie previews like that, would be the greatest thing ever. People don't love that one. Yeah, not, not a big fan of Dr. So and So, right? He really didn't sell it in his film, but like that would be so great to have, but advisors remembering that it's that first time for the student, and even if it isn't, it's maybe the first time that they're ready to retain it. You may say, Well, I talked to him about the the gen ed or the program at orientation, yeah? Listen, they were drinking through a fire hose that day. Yeah, bring any of that right? Slow down. Spend some time with them. Remember, it may be the first time they're actually able to retain that information.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Or they don't read their email, right, like what, we only sent them 40 today as an institution, which ones are they supposed to read and which ones aren't they supposed to read?

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, we send a lot. Do you know how many as an institution, if you don't try to figure out that answer, because it'll surprise you or terrify you or make you sad, see how none of those were happy.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'm thinking about the preview, the movie preview, course descriptions. Joe came to class, and then he had to get in front of class and give a five minute persuasion speech. Do you like cutting into animals? I don't know. Maybe that's biology. I don't know. Have you thought about the impact of pesticides on your foods?

Kevin Thomas  
We all day long? All right, so the fun and adjust us episode is that it's a little bit of talk, and then it's wrapping things up pretty quick. But we we do have top threes, and I'm interested to see what you say on this, because I really don't know top three overrated TV shows of the past 20 years. Here's to give you a little timeline in this. It's 2026 friends ended in 2004 it's not in your arsenal of shows. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I feel like a lot of the younger generation does still watch that show.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, Netflix and the streaming services have been great for the binge and discovery of a lot of shows and friends. I think was one of them for many generations.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Alright, here's my three. I'm going to let you go first, because I need time to think about this.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, this is my three. And I will say that one of these shows I enjoy quite a bit, and one of them I don't enjoy it all, and one of them I'm indifferent to, but I still think they all fall into overrated. The first one on my list is The Walking Dead. Fine. Yeah, listen in the show, people are bad. Zombies are bad. The earth is bad. Like, there's just not like, and then it just gets to a point where it's like, run around, get eaten, get shot at. It's like, I don't know how that thing lasted, 11 seasons or 12 seasons. I. I watched them, and it was a lot, and I did overrated for sure. 30 rock is on my list. And I will say I tried. I really did like I want to like it. I think the people that are in it are funny. It's just not my thing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, God, I thought it was a great show. Tina Fey and and I again, they were fantastic.

Kevin Thomas  
And then last and this is going to be not popular with people in my audience and not popular with my co host. Oh, you're killing me, man, is this still too? I don't know if this is 20 years, but I'm throwing it in there anyway. I'm breaking, I'm stretching the rules Seinfeld. I just can't, I don't like it's, it's not even a binge worthy show for me. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
You are crushing my soul. Man, that is just perfect TV.

Kevin Thomas  
perfect TV. the case with movies too, right? Like, I was watching Spaceballs the other day, and even though they're doing a sequel of space balls, which is a whole different story. Like, I think it fit because of when it occurred, and now coming back, is it going to be as transformational or cultural? I don't think so. But like, I think Seinfeld is in that realm. Like Seinfeld in that moment, in that timeframe, is it was probably a great experience when you watch week to week TV. Here's a burst. That's what it is, not binging. If Seinfeld came out today, it's not making two seasons. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So the question is, does it hold up, versus, is it overrated? I think, I think it holds up and it's not overrated, but that's fine, like you compare it to something like MASH, which will be timeless and hilarious forever, right? Like, that's a great comedy, no question or cheers, right? Like, the idea, like, to me, those are two of the best I throw Seinfeld in there. Like, to me, friends is harder to to watch now than say, Seinfeld, right? Like, I think it's a little bit more dated than and and a little bit more overrated.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, and I struggle. I'll say for this one, friends is on your list. I struggle with that one because of Matthew Perry died, right? And it's like, oh, like, that was always my favorite. Now I'm just sad.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Look, I think that when I think about overrated, like, I never understood lost.

Kevin Thomas  
Like, yeah, that was on my list. And I look, I like, lost a lot, but it was on my list.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
It was so overrated. Like, come on.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, I this is a TV show, because it's the highest rated one every year. I kind of think the Super Bowl is getting overrated.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, oh god, yeah. I mean, maybe the game is fun.

Kevin Thomas  
The game is usually okay, and it's had a stretch where it's been okay. The commercials used to be the supplement, and those have gotten pretty and and and so, because it just costs so much money to do, I think. But like, I would put the Super Bowl in consideration on the most overrated show.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I have no problem with that. I mean, we I mean, the Super Bowl is kind of the culmination of the NFL football season. I love the NFL a lot more than college football generally. But, yeah, let me think there's I was thinking about law, like I did watch say, for example, what is it? Grey's Anatomy. And that was good initially, but come on, 20 seasons, yeah. Like, what are we doing?

Kevin Thomas  
We get it. Your doctors move on.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That like to be with each other, right? I wouldn't deal with massive tragedies that only a TV show tragedies kind of allow for, right?

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, what you got? You have a third one? Are you your friends?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, friends, yeah. I mean, so, that gives me three. All right. Well, close us out of here, Brody.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So, all right, folks, that this was our first just episode of the pickup meeting in 2026 We hope your own meetings for more pickup style are as meaningful As fun as this one, until next time do good and be nice.