Ep. 25 - A "Just Us" Episode

What if faculty are the secret sauce in student success? In this episode of The Pickup Meeting, Kevin and Brody kick things off with sports hot takes, Olympics nostalgia, and the kind of job stories that include delivering newspapers in the 80s and bringing “sports salvation to the airwaves.” This conversation unpacks why great teaching is not just about content delivery but connection. The kind that lingers for 25 years. The kind that changes trajectories. The kind that makes students believe they belong.

Plus:

• Why bad advising is just bad advising, no matter who does it
• How faculty development can elevate advising impact
• The magic of lunch conversations and chicken strip diplomacy
• And why this stretch of the semester matters more than we realize

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

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

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
And away we go. Welcome to the pickup meeting. First one to check their phone loses wait. It should be like first one to check their phone buys drinks later, yeah, but since we're doing this on Zoom, it just means we're buying our own drinks.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That is true. Absolutely. I could send you a Venmo, I guess.

Kevin Thomas  
That's true. We'll have to think about that one.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
A virtual drink.

Kevin Thomas  
A virtual drink, a beverage, a beverage for us all, versus...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes, how you doing? 

Kevin Thomas  
I am so good. You know, it's the end of March. Time frame we've gotten through March Madness. Baseball is kicking up. Spring is in full effect. Allergies are kicking our butts, and it's beautiful because we're moving past winter. How are you?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'm doing great. I assume your brackets already busted if it if it wasn't to begin with, did you know, Kevin, I don't really do brackets anymore. Why is that? Well, I became the Faculty Athletics rep in in 2009 at USI, and the gambling piece with the NCAA is a pretty big deal. So I just stopped doing it. And now that I'm not a faculty rep, I'm I've just decided that I'm not gonna let people know how bad I am at picking college basketball games, so I just don't do it anymore, and then I just say that's exactly what I would have picked.

Kevin Thomas  
Exactly it. Do you find that you do better in your mental bracket picking when Indiana is or is not in the tournament.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think if they're in the tournament, I'm a total wreck. I have no idea how to pick them. You know, when they were number one in the country in 2013 and 14, and they lost to Syracuse in the sweet 16. I mean, I had them going the whole way. I really thought it was their year, and I wanted to believe that they could break that Syracuse myth, that that matchup zone, and they just played terrible that day. So ever since that, I don't really know what to do with them, and they haven't been in the NCAA Tournament all that much since 2015, 14, either. So I sometimes will theme the picks. And I never picked the right theme. You know, a couple years ago I I did one with my brothers, I guess I should say I've never done them, but my theme was the big 10. All gets to the Final Four, and that, that was the year I think Purdue lost in the first round.

Kevin Thomas  
And you're like...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
It's over before it even started.

Kevin Thomas  
Braden, you know, he, he, he doesn't really care, right? Like I would say, he stays aware of what's going on in the sports world, but generally, just is not a big fan of it. But he always did the bracket of mascots, like a mascot bracket. And so from the point in which he could speak, it was like, Do you like the terrapins, or do you like the wild cats? Yes. And so then it's like, what's a Terrapin? It's kind of an angry turtle. I don't know what it is. Kind of dates it, because I don't think Maryland goes to tournaments anymore either. But that technique did allow him to pick UMBC, so it worked out for him. It did work out for him. That's for sure. Now is this period of time the greatest couple weeks in sports, like is March Madness still that winner take all, like moment of the year.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I don't know the NIL piece makes it a little tougher, but the upsets, I do think that college basketball is there's more parity than we really want to believe, even if the best teams kind of end up in the Final Four in most instances, although we've seen historically, lots of years where the underdog gets there, gets to the Final Four. And I know that when I was in Indiana those couple years that Butler made it to the final game back to back was pretty crazy. You know, you've got Loyola making it to the final four. So it's not as if those things don't happen, but I do enjoy watching the games, for sure. I used to take the Thursday and Friday afternoons off as vacation when I back in the old days, when I really, really cared, and I would just go to a sports bar and by myself or with a friend of mine, and we would just watch the games all the way through. Just loved that.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I did the same. I would usually take off Thursday or Friday. I can remember taking off. And by taking off, I mean playing hooky, and all of a sudden having a fever as a teenager, is the ACC tournament. The week before the NCAA Tournament, was like, Oh, I'm I'm gonna take off and just watch that and watch basketball in that way. And I still think that it is one of the best time frames. But as this episode's being released, we're about a month from when the Olympics ended, and we talked about this briefly on another episode of the pickup meeting, but like, our feelings on the Winter Olympics, and I will say, I don't feel like I watched a lot of Winter Olympics, but I think everyone else did. And so I think that timeframe of the Olympics and that, you know, for 16 days of it is must see TV for folks, and probably a March Madness equivalent. Now, I will admit I did get up at whatever time seven o'clock in the morning today or Sunday to watch the gold medal hockey game. And I don't know that there was much better viewing experience of anything I've watched sports related in quite some time than...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I really enjoyed the game too. I'm surprised we weren't texting each other, but we normally do that, but we did. I did watch the game, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, there's something about the emotion of that. And I'm a little less on the like, USA versus Canada versus like, you could really just feel like that. There was actually like, you could touch the energy that was occurring in in that environment, and you can just like, feel the excitement that was happening. It was just, it was a wow moment. And sometimes I think the NCAA tournament, and specifically, which is really hard about it, the first two days of the tournament are in that, that vein, as opposed to the Final Four. Most of the time I don't care.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes, because my team's not there, but yeah, yeah. I mean, I was super surprised that the United States had not won a gold medal since 1980 I did not realize that. I know we're a month on, but that that really surprised me. And you know, we talk about this being the wheelhouse of sports for fans. I mean, opening day is coming right up, and we can talk about that maybe in our next one. But boy, it's a fun time to be a sports fan, that's for sure. It is. And if you are not a sports person, you've hated these first eight minutes of this episode, but, but we can rebound. Because we have rebound. We have something really important to talk about today, and we've only really covered this topic 10 gently say that a couple times.

Kevin Thomas  
Keep going, I'll keep watching.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
But we haven't talked a lot about faculty impact on student success and academic advising, and I think it's time we kind of unpack this.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, because I think that in some of this conversation comes from the administrators Institute, and I'll say for me, we had a few faculty that were in attendance at the event, and it was refreshing to see department chairs or folks that grew up in the faculty rank and are now administrators In some way, coming and learning and growing within the experience that they were getting there. But I'm looking at this and I say, and I think that faculty themselves said this is that there's this perception that faculty advising is bad advising. I know it. I don't like that at all. And I don't like that either, because what I really think the truth of the situation is, is bad advising, whether by a faculty member or a primary role advisor, if it's done right, it can be great. It doesn't matter who it is. Bad advising is just bad advising. It doesn't have to be by a faculty member or a staff member. It's just bad advising being done, and that can happen from all kinds, but it just there's this notion that faculty don't advise as well, and I don't, I feel like that's just wrong.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I'm not sure we've been great. And by we, I mean as an advising community. The thinking about the role faculty play, not just in advising, but you wrote this down in the notes, and I 100% agree with this, but I do think faculty are often the most underutilized partner in our student success and retention efforts. Why do you think that is.

Kevin Thomas  
Honestly, I think, because there's, there's a few aspects that are going on for a faculty member, typically advising on their campuses is not valued, and that's a concern, because when there's all of the things from a service component or committee involvement or teaching or research, that that faculty have to care about for tenure, promotion, various things within their organizations that they're a part of, like that they have to that that's their focus. I think all of a sudden we think, from outside looking in, that advising is maybe not as valued by them as it should be. The other thing that I think occurs is that when we're talking about retention and student success, we're often thinking about we have limitations on time, most bang for our buck as far as effort, and so we want to put something together that's going to serve hundreds of students, and not typically a student and faculty serve hundreds of students, but typically, when we're talking about the at risk nature of things, we're not talking about hundreds of students by a particular faculty member. And so we're looking for the widest net to do the greatest good. And faculty have an opportunity to really impact on an individual basis that we sometimes in higher ed like to ignore.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned impact Marcia, we wrote down in the notes, and we don't have to talk about this, but like, faculty members that kind of had a big impact on us and Marcia Baxter Magolda was a faculty member at Miami University. Peter Magolda, Judy Rogers were my three primary faculty members when I was at Miami. What a trio of superstars in higher education, for sure, but Marcia talked a lot about student development and the impact of faculty. And what she said was, if we just realized that faculty's greatest impact is in the classroom, like, just be a better faculty member, be a better teacher of your content. And I think a lot of the research kind of builds on that. Tinto talks about faculty members being at the center of any institutions retention efforts. And to me, it just feels Simple, right? We, we don't, we don't help faculty understand the kind of impact they can have in the classroom by being great instructors. And if, if, if we worked with them and and I think, as advisors, or even as a higher ed professional, I would just tell faculty, just be really good at what you cover in class. Get good at making your classroom an engaging place, a place where you believe in the efforts of the students in your class. And I think student success and retention would increase and be better if, if we collectively kind of thought about the role of faculty in that way. Just, you know, Marsha Baxter megola said, just be better in your discipline. Be better in your teaching of your discipline in the classroom, and it's going to have a massive impact on student success and retention.

Kevin Thomas  
I attended this success summit many, many years ago, and George Kuh was there, and he talked about the things that are really impactful from a faculty perspective, in retention work. And he said, have your best faculty teaching your freshmen and sophomores. Yes, but here's the thing he doesn't say, how do you determine who your best faculty are, because typically, in the campus experiences, and when I've done presentations and you've looked at the data, sometimes your best faculty aren't faculty at all, and they're your adjunct or call staff or temporary folks that you bring in that bring a different energy and passion to things. And that was one of these really hard conversations at a former institution. Of these folks are impacting retention in really massive ways. And so like, what's happening in and out of the classroom? You're absolutely correct. Like, we need more faculty to teach at that 102 100 level to ensure that students are getting connected with their departments. And I think that institutions that have this figured out really have that combination of great advising occurring, but also great experiences happening in those early classroom experiences. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
There was an article in the Chronicle a couple of years ago I remember talked a little bit about the importance. Positive interactions with faculty members, right? These authentic human connections really help students graduate at a greater level, right, when we can have those positive interactions, and this is really about helping students kind of be more confident in their ability to get through challenges, to their ability to believe that they can accomplish these things. And when faculty are committed and engaged and promote that kind of belief with their students, it makes a huge difference. A huge difference.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I think about this from the faculty advising standpoint, this kind of jump there for a minute. There were several years I ran a program at Western Kentucky University, and kind of borrowed the theming and the approach that Missouri State had done at their institution for an overall development, but my effort was just for faculty called the master advisor certificate. And so faculty only would be supported by their colleges and their departments, and 25 would go through this program. And the very first session that we did with faculty was, what do you know? You know, and like, what do you know about advising and how? How did you learn it? And I would say, of those graduates over the timeframe I did it, which was about 100 folks that went through the program in those four years that I was responsible for, I'd say nine times out of 10 the guidance and how those advisors, those faculty advisors were advising was they were just leaning on the experience that they had had as a student. Yeah, with faculty advising, yeah, we look at that and we say, is it good? Is it bad? Is it is it great? Is it, you know, like, what is it? It's typically just not developed approaches. And so when we talk about development and growth of an advising practice for the faculty advising experience, I don't know that we we usually put a lot of work into getting faculty to be there, to also be a part of that growth and development. We just assume, well, they know the curriculum sometimes, yes, they're gonna know how to advise. Yeah, that's not how advising works.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
No, yeah, we lean into this. We've leaned into the strengths when, when we've had a chance to have that kind of work done. I know when I first got to the University of Southern Indiana, other than with undecided students and conditionally admitted students, we were in a faculty based model, and we were trying to make that experience a better one, and Shelly, blunt and I we put in for some funding with the provost office, and got funded to do this training, the trainers program, and we brought advising faculty, advising champions, right, folks that were kind of superstars in their undergraduate colleges, and we trained them to go out and and work with other faculty to kind of help them understand the role that faculty advising plays in student success. And we started with the core competencies, right, the conceptual, informational, relational. And we really, we really started with the conceptual first, and I'll never forget the getting the evaluations. A couple of our faculty members were like, Well, you didn't share the information right away. Students need to know specific things. And I was like, Well, yeah, that's true. We do need to be credible in the work, but students aren't going to care unless they know what role you play in their development as students. And we had a great time with that. That program. It was a two day program, and we brought people back, and these faculty did spring semester sessions with their entire advising, their faculty advising caseloads within their undergraduate colleges. It led to a lot of great outcomes. And I think the other piece is just to I think we should assume that faculty want to do a good job in this work, right? If we, if we, if we come from a bad assumption, then I think that's also going to impact the way that we as maybe professional advisors, see faculty and nobody wins when that happens.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, that's right. And I think one of the things too, when we talk about faculty impacts on retention, the topic that comes up a lot is the early alert interventions that are happening on campus. Yeah, and I think that those are invaluable efforts. But I'm curious your thought here, because we, the last few years, have had great success, and I would say, everywhere I've been, has would have similar numbers to this, as far as faculty feedback, and generally, we're talking about freshmen and sophomore. Responses. You know, certain number of classes, maybe new students, something like that. This year, second semester, new system. We are slate campus, and so we're using that slate Student Success Platform. 88% response rate. That's amazing, right? And I would say that that has been my norm on three different campuses now, yeah, now on the flip side of that, do I think that all early alert efforts, regardless of response rates, are effective with faculty? I don't know that. I think that's true, right? We're getting things back. But is it really the faculty having a drastic impact on student success? No, I think their drastic impact is probably far beyond what they provide an early alert. And so it's like, how do you balance the time that they put into that that does have some value, and time that they put in in other ways that are impactful? I think that, to me, is just a hard balance, because faculty absolutely matter in the retention student success world.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, what we've tried to do anywhere that I've been is close the loop on what faculty really think the big issues are. So at the University of Southern Indiana, when we moved our when we moved our rates up, I think there was this concern that we were going to see a significant increase in withdrawals from these courses, right? You're just trying to get students to withdraw earlier, and so one of the things we had to do was gather data that says, No, that's not what we're trying to do, and that's not what the data suggested. And actually, quite conversely, is what ended up happening was students were withdrawing less because we were able to reach out to them early as our in our professional advising world, our professional advisors that were working with first and second year students, we could reach out they got to the interventions quicker, and it really made a huge difference. Even here at Illinois State, our response rates have been really pretty strong, even though we do this later in the semesters, and I think all faculty really want to know is that you're doing something with that information right, that you're reaching out to the student. You're helping them understand where they sit in this space at this moment in time, and making sure that they either one or reaching back out to faculty to kind of get a potential intervention there that could be helpful, or seeking out tutoring, or if withdraw is what has to happen, that the student understands the implication of that withdrawal so that they can make an informed decision about what to do next if they are struggling. And so I think that closing the loop piece really matters in your relationships with faculty across that spectrum, right? And they're playing a role in retention and student success efforts. How did those efforts? How do we close the loop on those efforts and make sure they understand the role that they've played in that space?

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I agree completely that you've got to fulfill the whole project, and that closing the loop is big. I'm curious if you feel like you have a faculty member that changed your trajectory. And maybe that was, you know, the story you mentioned earlier, but maybe it was somebody else along the road there that you've you've had in your journey. Was there one to impact you? There are names that speak out to me, and I've mentioned some of them before in previous episodes. Previous episodes doc McGahee and how he taught Steve Cox that was in the org comm department at Murray State. Strangely, and I don't think I had the great, the greatest appreciation for Dr Coleman at Murray State when I was there, she, you know, led that senior class, and it was like, we have to do what we have to present on what topic, you know, and like, we have to talk for how long. But like, really effective faculty member that I think really helped me grow in my communication effort, but I don't know that changed my trajectory in higher education. I think back to some of those. I think of Dr Barbara Burch, who is the provost at Western Kentucky, and she taught a course that was just higher ed topics, and she would come into a room with just 10 of us, give us a topic and let us go. And the ability to think differently, I think, was a really powerful learning experience, and so I have a lot of respect for that, as far as how I think nowadays, from that classroom experience, that at the time, felt like she didn't really have anything to add, and so she just came in and gave us the topic from her day. And I don't think that's really what happened. I think there was purpose in it, and and she did really well and helping me see a different way of thinking. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, at the undergraduate level, I have two in particular, George Juergens was this history faculty member. Taught 29 years at Indiana University, and just was amazing. He taught a course called the presidents in the press. I think I've talked about this course maybe 10% of your grade. Was that 1000 page book on the powers that be by David Halberstam. But well, he brought his. To life, and always kind of taught in this way that made you kind of think about history in conflicting views. And so, you know, there never was one way to kind of think about history, which I always loved and and then Marjorie Hershey was just a superstar in the Department of Political Science. I took my Intro to American politics class with her, and then I took a couple other courses with her, at the 300 level political parties and interest groups. And, you know, once I found somebody that I really loved, I took Intro to history with George Juergens. Had American history. I took presidents in the press. I took social history from the Civil War to like the depression, and then with Marjorie, it was political parties, and it's true, Intro to American politics, those classes just ring so familiar to me, right? Just the topics and the passion with which they spoke about those issues really made my undergraduate experience so meaningful. And there were lots of great faculty, rich Pacelle, who taught in political science, he would often have lunch with us and talk to us about the world. He taught our con law class, and I just loved that class. And then at the master's level, I mean, Marcia, Peter magolla, Judy Rogers, so impactful in the way that I think about student success, student development, and the best faculty members cared about your life outside of school too. Peter was such a great music fan, and we would talk about music all the time after class. And if we would go to his house, they sometimes have the cohort to the house and oh, it really is. The power of faculty really is unbelievable.

Kevin Thomas  
I've seen it in my daughter's lives too. They both had wonderful faculty members at the University of Southern Indiana that really enhanced their development, not just as students, but as persons. And so who we got to remember that in the advising community, I think we are pretty hard on faculty and really at great peril in my mind. And we have to remember you said something there at the end that I think is so helpful, because I think advisors try sometimes, in whether it's faculty or primary role professional staff, advisors to put the environment into a box, right? And you talked about going to lunch with or having meals with. Same thing on my end, right? Like I remember after class, like the class getting together, and we had a guest speaker, and it was at that time mercy state president, King Alexander, or how he went by F King Alexander, say that fast King Alexander, and he went to the chicken strip place down in the student center, and just sat and talked to us about higher ed and the things he faces as a president and all those things. I mean, it made a monumental difference and left a lasting impression. And for him, it was just having dinner with students. And for us, it was, we're going to remember that conversation Yeah, a long time. What? 25, 30 years later, you know, in that range. And so it's, it's pretty important to do those things that are maybe a little non traditional too.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I think we did pretty good today on this topic.

Kevin Thomas  
We were excellent. You're welcome, America and Canada.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And the global community.

Kevin Thomas  
Well, yes, we know we have listeners that are primarily in the United States and Canada, but yes, welcome world. All right, so fun transition again to things that are outside of higher ed, and I think that we're typically learning a little bit about each other. And so I'm curious, what are your top three jobs you've had outside of higher ed?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, man, I'll start young. I'll go young to old. Does that sound okay? Yes, my first job, the only job I really had from the time I was 12 or 13 until I went to college, oh, I know this one I was, I was a newspaper boy.

Kevin Thomas  
You made bank because you bought your car with it. I did. I know that I sent the paper out, right?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, so I had a paper route, and I loved that job. We started with the afternoon route, and then the people that delivered. Think about this. This is the 80s, Kevin. There were two newspapers printed in Evansville, Indiana in 1983 a morning edition and an Evening Edition.

Kevin Thomas  
And now there's just Twitter.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Those newspapers. I mean, it's 100% true, yeah. And so, I mean, look, 365 days a year. You wake up every morning at five o'clock, and you deliver those newspapers, and you're a morning person, yeah? And it is, and in the 80s, you had to collect the money from. The customers. There was no Venmo, right? I had to go door to door and get my money. Like I want my $2 right? $2 I want my $2.

Kevin Thomas  
All right. What's the second job?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Uh, second job. So I in between my sophomore year and junior year of college, I did an internship with Citizens Bank, and I worked in the mail room. And it was this internship program. And all these other folks, these other college students from all these other places, ended up in great little areas in the bank like finance and trust and all these things, and I got to work in the mail room. And initially I was really upset about that, and then it was like the greatest thing in the world, because all I did was deliver mail to all of these important areas where the other interns were just sitting, like filing papers and doing, I mean, we were listening to rock and roll music in the mail room, and then I got to deliver the mail, and I got to meet all of the professionals that were working in each of these areas. It was fantastic. Now, I almost got killed because we used to do inter bank delivery, and I was outside one day in a rainstorm, and some lady ran a red light and almost killed me. I pulled my greatest stunt man jumped onto the car, hood of the car and rolled onto the windshield and kind of screamed at the lady.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, this story sounds cooler than it probably is. Like it was, like the Brody version of what occurred, and then what really happened was, like a slight jump, and then, like awkward rolling and then, like, you just see some young kid yelling at an old woman in the car.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
It might have been like that. No, it wasn't like that. I'm telling the story the way I want to tell this story, but it was great, like, so you start to think about the role that the mail room plays, but for me, I just got to meet all of the really great folks, right? So rather than sitting at a desk and being with with a it was, it was really amazing. And the other interns, when we would go to the meetings, they were just they they hated life because they were not doing anything as fun as what I was doing. And then the last job, I mean, for five years, from 30 until 35 my last five years at the University of Northern Iowa, I had my own sports radio talk show. God, it was so great. 510, to six o'clock brother Brody bringing sports salvation to the airwaves. That that was my that was my tagline. Oh so awesome.

Kevin Thomas  
That's a good job. That's a good time.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I had Tony Dorsett. I talked to Don dickinger. I talked to the MVP of the WNBA. You played for the Minnesota links. I mean, so many, so many stars, Kirk fairens, Steve Alford, like all of the Greg McDermott, all the, all the coaches in Iowa. It was awesome.

Kevin Thomas  
So much fun. That is fantastic. How about you? What were your three? So the three that came to mind is first, one of my favorite jobs ever is working at Hardee's. Gosh, I love working at Hardee's. You did, yeah? Like I was so good at I got the job so that I could work with some high school classmates, I think, like Ryan Gerlach and Carl Adams throwback for Sparta, Illinois. Listen, and I was working there for like a week doing the night shift, and the manager was like, you're kind of pretty good at this, and you're not a jerk. And so like, can you start working in the mornings? And so then I'm there at like, 430 or five, making biscuits and getting the front line ready, and people showing up, and I'm like, Well, I'm learning their orders. This guy wants biscuits and gravy every day, and this guy wants this. I loved it. It's like, instant gratification position, right? Like, they order something, I give it to them. I don't screw up. They're happy. I'm happy. All of the things are great and and I still go to Hardee's now and have breakfast. It is a great

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
place, yeah. And to be honest, the ham egg and cheese biscuit may be the greatest fast food item of all times that Hardy's ham egg and cheese biscuit. Golly, so good.

Kevin Thomas  
There you go. Thank you. Hardee's, the second place I can remember, and I think this was pre Hardee's is I worked for the Sparta airport, which, that sounds like an exciting job, but it wasn't. And so there was a group of, like, four or five, six of us that would be in the back of a room, and we would sort aerial slides of irrigation patterns that a photographer and a pilot would go up and shoot in states surrounding Illinois. So it was like Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and they would fly down to that, and they would they would travel straight lines, and then they would shoot that, and then they would send us the film. And. And we would compile it and send it to different Farm Bureaus and different places throughout the country so that farmers could use that to plant their crops. That sounds terrible. It was a lot. We listened to a lot of music and just looked at slide sorters like bright things just shooting at your eyes like it was a lot. Now, the cool thing was, is I can remember going to lunch and getting in the plane in Sparta and flying to sykeston, Cape Girardeau area to go have lunch at Lambert's for some throat rolls well. And so that's the only time I've ever flown a plane. I got in a plane and the guy said, Okay, this is a test plane, I can take control, but we're gonna let you take off and land. And it's like, all right, this is something, and I'm glad to not ever be a pilot. So, like, that was a lot, but it was a good experience. And then the last one that I would say, and this is kind of in higher education, so I could, I guess I could, you know, tweak this a little bit. You can cheat as a student. I work for the murray state news. I was the, I think I was the assistant sports editor. Maybe at some point I was a sports editor. I don't really remember, but I used to write opinion pieces and cover stories. There was a, one of my favorite was I covered intramural sports for the Murray State News. And there was a basketball team, a men's basketball team, that was named but a and so I did the headline that said, butter rolls on because they won. And they're like, No, we're not, we're not putting that in there. And I'm like, you've got to put that in there. The rest of the articles junk, but the headline is amazing. And so I remember writing these articles and just having way more fun with it than I should have. That's incredible. It's it's fun. Hey, you know, we got to wrap this up. But before we get to your part, I do want to say it's the end of March, and all of us that are probably listening to this podcast, except for my father, who tunes in and then will send us things to talk about next time.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, I'm need to see that list.

Kevin Thomas  
And I will say that this is a pretty key timeframe of the semester where your relationships with students matter most. And so whether you're faculty, your staff, you're trying your best in the Student Success world. Don't let the busyness of this season, because this is when we blink and all of a sudden it's moved from February to May pretty quickly. Don't let the busyness of this season keep you from connecting with your students and helping them succeed at their highest level. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And we're also a little tired, right? Maybe a little fatigued. We're ready to see the end, but you got this, you can get it done. Finish strong, right? You got this? Yeah, so Well, all right, folks, that's it for this edition of the pickup meeting. We hope your own meetings formal or pickup style or as meaningful as fun as this one, and until next time, do good. Be nice.