Helping Advisors Thrive: Building People, Not Just Processes - Adventures in Advising

Get ready for an energetic episode of Adventures in Advising with Temple Carter, Director of Advising Programming and Development for the Texas A&M University System. Temple shares how lessons from theater and the corporate world bring fresh ideas to advisor training, professional development, and organizational growth. You’ll hear creative strategies for supporting advisor wellness, building connections across institutions, and keeping curiosity at the center of advising. It’s a lively mix of storytelling, practical takeaways, and even a debate over pineapple on pizza! 

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Transcript

Ryan Scheckel  
Well, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Adventures in Advising podcast. My name is Ryan Scheckel. With us, as always is Matt Markin. Matt, how are you doing on this Friday?

Matt Markin  
Yeah, we're recording this on a Friday. There's always going to be we always wanted things to be smooth sailing. I can't even talk today, but there's always some tech issues. Your computer crashed a few minutes ago. But we're we're back on which is great.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, one of the things that I absolutely love is the idea of, like, the polished, finished product that's presented to the world, but then knowing all the ways that the sausage gets made and and all the things that happen along the way, sometimes that's as much as an interesting story as anything else we're doing. But I'm really excited to talk to our guest today. I don't know if I've ever expressed it this way before, but one of the absolute gifts that academic advising has given me is the people that we meet along the way, and every time I have a chance to talk with someone who I've known for a while, but from this perspective, I really appreciate it, so I'm looking forward to our conversation for this episode.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and this is someone that you actually have known for many, many years, someone that you respect, someone that I've only really known headed through social media, someone that will be at the annual conference in Vegas in October, and someone that's been a huge supporter of the podcast as well.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, absolutely. So today we have Temple Carter with us. I'm gonna read, of course, Temple's bio, but for context, Temple, how long ago was it that we met? I'm trying to remember what state conference we were at. 

Temple Carter  
You're testing my memory this morning. Texaan conference?

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, it was one of the Texaan conferences. I think it might have been Waco, and I'm thinking it might have been 2014 I'm not understand, sure, but so Temple is passionate about cultivating talent, and that's one of the things I've known for the whole time since I've known her, she wants to help academic advising professionals develop their skills, grow in their roles, and realize their full potential. She currently serves as the Director of Advising programming and development for the Texas A&M University system, where she designs professional development experiences for advisors across their 12 member institutions. Temple's journey into higher education has been anything but linear. We'll talk a lot about that today. She has a bachelor's degree in theater, specifically the directing perspective, and a master's in educational technology from Texas State University. She spent 18 years in higher ed working in academic advising, teaching, training and program development, before taking a leap into the corporate world, she honed her skills and leadership and organizational development through roles at CPS energy, where she worked in leadership development, and at HEB, where she contributed to the organizational design team. These experiences broadened her perspective on talent cultivation and brought fresh insights back to her work in higher education at her core, Temple is a storyteller and connector, someone who believes that investing in people is the most important way to transform institutions and student experiences. But outside of work, she's happily married and the proud dog. Mom took four rambunctious pups, Pogo gigabyte, megabyte and kilobyte. I love that who keep life full of energy and laughter temple. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Temple Carter  
Thanks for having me. I'm excited for your conversation. A

Ryan Scheckel  
You know that's the formal bio. We always love to get that sort of comprehensive perspective and then sort of deconstruct it as we go. But we also like to hear it in your own words. What has been your experience and and your path in higher education? Sort of what's your origin story?

Temple Carter  
So that's a wonderful question. My origin story is not linear, like a lot of people may be or think it should be. I started off as an administrative assistant. I applied for a position because I was a student worker. I had graduated, I knew I wasn't going to go into the theater of arts, so I had worked in higher education a lot, and I applied for the administrative assistant position. And in that time, my supervisor told me about an academic advisor position that would be becoming open. Funny enough, I was in college, I had an academic advisor, but I never thought of it as a career path. So it was great that she saw those elements in me that would she thought would make me a great academic advisor. So started on that path and absolutely fell in love with it. Working with exploratory students, helping them find those aha moments, helping them find the major that they're interested in, that they're passionate about. It's hard to put into words how much I really enjoyed that experience. And after a little while, I started to notice another passion of mine, which is like the learning and development, that training and development side that I thought was really, really cool to put into academic advice and to say, how can we train our advisors better? And that moved me into more of a training and development role. And also, at my time at Texas State, I noticed that I wanted to work with students in a different capacity, so I started my faculty position where I worked with students in career development, worked with everything from seniors to freshmen, and that was a wonderful experience that I think my advising background definitely helped with. And so I did that for about five years, and then a position became open at the University of Texas at San Antonio that wasn't like other positions, and it was being over the training and development, almost like the employee experience for their academic advisors at UTSA. And so that really interests me, because you didn't see them back then that often. So I applied and got that position. And in that time, I learned a lot about not just training and development, but the hiring process, the thoughts that you should put in there to attract talent to, you know, your institutions thinking about their performance. What do they need to support the students? What resources do they need? Do they have the development tools that they they need to thrive in their roles? And then also looking at how are they engaging in their positions to keep them motivated? So during that time, then the pandemic hit, and so higher education was kind of turned on his head. So a lot was going on for us to be in survival mode at that point. And at that time, I wanted to try something different. Something in me was like, this is the time to try something new. And I dipped my toe outside of higher education and applied for position at CPS energy for their leadership development team. I was nervous. I didn't think I would get it, but I got it, and it was probably one of the best opportunities in my career that I could say, because it allowed me to expand my resources, my knowledge, and I learned so much that I was like, Oh, if I ever go back to higher education, I want to put some of these things in place. These are some of the things I haven't seen before, especially in an academic advising such section, as far as for their development. And then also after CPS energy, I returned to higher education for a little while to do more of the talent development role at the University of Texas, UT Austin System. And in that role, I helped develop and cultivate training, learning and development specifically for the system office staff. And then I got a call from ATB, which is a brochure training that's very popular in Texas, to be a part of their organizational design team, and I thought that's different than training and development, but it's a challenge I'm willing to accept, to see how can we help the processes and procedures and help each department under ATD thrive and grow after that part, I saw a position posted and got a call to let me know that a position at the Texas A&M system was developing an office for academic advising because they wanted to support this, people that are supporting their students, and so they put together the Office of Academic Advising. And my now supervisor, I'd say, event, letting them know about the position. And I applied, and I got it, and that's where I have been in my career for about two and a half years now, which is amazing, getting to work with now 12 institutions, just joined us on September 1.

Matt Markin  
Wow. Two and a half years has it flown by? 

Temple Carter  
It has flown by a whole lot since I started in 2023 lots of great things and lots of knowledge to learn about the A and M System. I've been privileged to be able to work with the three different, three different systems within the state of Texas, everyone being very different, and having their own unique way of approaching higher education.

Matt Markin  
And you've mentioned, you know, your passion, you've mentioned wanting to cultivate talent. I was wondering, you know, what lessons maybe from because you've been in higher ed, you know, outside of higher ed and corporate world, back to higher ed. I was wondering what. Lessons from, maybe from CPS energy and HEB, have influenced maybe how you're you're approaching advisor training and organizational growth?

Temple Carter  
So one of the ways at CPS energy is they expanded my mind past just training and looking more at the professional development side. So with leadership development, I would say, from CPS energy, they had an Emerging Leaders Program which was more about the professional development side than necessarily just the training the day to day things that you need to do your your job and having that professional growth. So when I saw programs like that, and having like a leadership library, and encouraging your employees to do development outside of training. I was like, this is the type of mindset. This is the type of strategy we need to bring to academic advisors as well, too, so that way they can bring their talents, because every individual advisor brings something different to their style, to advise and to support students, and even at HB with a different approach, since that wasn't necessarily under talent development, but just how do we structure our organizations? How do we structure our academic advising programs to maximize effectiveness and efficiency, to support the advisor and the student.

Ryan Scheckel  
So one of the things that was most interesting to me in preparing for our talk today was thinking about the unique perspective that your experience brings. Having been in higher ed, having been outside of higher ed, seen multiple institutional systems. Do you have any thoughts about why the for profit corporate world might be a little bit more, I don't know, strategic or intentional in professional development or talent development, than maybe other higher ed experiences you've had before?

Temple Carter  
It's hard to say how they pinpointed that. To say, Okay, if we invest in our people and our employees, that that will help us with our performance and with our business, I think it's something that higher education is now starting to tap into a lot more when I'm seeing a lot more employee success centers that's coming about, and faculty Success Centers, but it's difficult to pinpoint why they may have done it, and I think it could be something to the lines of they just know by investing in their people that that's going to help their customers, that's going to help their business overall. And that's something that I definitely hope higher education continues to do.

Matt Markin  
I hope so too. We'll see what happens now for with your experience and your role, like, what skills do you think are most critical for academic advisors to thrive right now?

Temple Carter  
I think some skills definitely communication skills and being able to adapt in the moment. There's so many things going on and you have to be adaptable to any situation that's thrown at you, from a student walking in that may be upset about a grade or a major to a policy change, being able to adapt to any type of procedures or policies that come through the university. I would say some other skills that would be very important is curiosity. And I know that's more of something advisors need to build to be more curious about their profession. And how can they best serve and help students, and also, how can they move the profession forward? So just being curious about their role.

Ryan Scheckel  
Speaking of roles, especially advising roles, what have you learned, and how have your potential answers to questions like that changed from when you were in an advising role to now being an administrator at the system level. You know those, those organizational levels, if you want to think of it like that, anything in particular that stands out to you in the difference of the way you viewed things at the beginning to where you are now?

Temple Carter  
I would say, naturally, things change as you get older, hopefully wiser. And I would say, the way that I thought about academic advising when I first started, can't believe I'm going to say this, what in 2006 is that the sole focus that I have was on the student as it should be, the student should be at our full, full focus. But the more I switched into different roles, the more I did realize that you have to support the people that are supporting our students. And so as I moved into the different positions, I started to think, okay, how can we do that? We're here for the students, but if our support system is burnt out. Are tired, don't have the resources they need to do the best work that they could do, the student is going to ultimately suffer the consequences of that. So I would say my scope kind of expanded from the student to the people supporting the students.

Matt Markin  
I love the way you said that, because I've heard, you know, when we're at conferences, and I'll hear from other individuals that'll say, like, yes, we're here for the student, but I don't feel like I have the support, or my supervisor says, well, everything we have to do is for the students, and no matter if that's extra work on your plate, now you have to figure it out. So I love that you say that support those that are supporting the students. So I'm curious, because, like from your bio, it's stating that, you know, you design professional development opportunities across 12 institutions in the Texas A&M system. So how do how do you go about doing that? 

Temple Carter  
That is a great question. I have great leadership who you trust that I'm going to deliver, and kind of try to make some some magic happen. And what I mean by that is not putting me in a certain box to say, you have to do it this way, but it starts with seeing what the institutions need, like doing a needs assessment. I'm not the type of professional that just wants to say, Okay, this is the latest, hottest thing. Let's just throw it at you if that's not something that you need to thrive and grow. So I like to listen. I like surveys and sending out surveys and getting those back. But nothing's better than sitting down and talking to an advisor or to a aspiring manager or a director of an advising center to say, Okay, what do you need? What couldn't we provide that would help you thrive and grow in your role as well, too? And then from there, seeing what connects the dots across all of our 12 institutions. So instead of just having one specific thing for one institution, academic advising is going to go across the board. How can we take those things and make those bigger? How can we have a professional development that goes across all of the institutions to where they connect with each other, and make those relationships to help each other grow as well too. So it kind of starts there with the assessment, and then from there, the three words that I'm concentrating on this year specifically, is connection. How can I get the advisors connected, be it networking opportunity, coffee chats, conversations, just to be able to relate and talk with each other. The other word that I have is develop. How can we provide development opportunities that are accessible or also in person for the advisors to be able to network with each other. And then the last one that I have is engagement. And I believe engagement is very important that also influences your professional development as well too. How can we keep the advisors engaged and recognize their impact as well too? So it's not just professional development that I try to focus on. I try to focus on that engagement piece as well, too. So our advisors feel motivated and excited about the work that they do because they're doing amazing work. They're changing lives every day.

Ryan Scheckel  
I'm a little bit of an organizational design nerd myself. It was a feature of my interdisciplinary masters and and one of the concepts that I ran across during that time was this idea of boundary spanning in, you know, really highly structured bureaucratic organizations, sometimes either a person or an activity, an event or some sort of cultural element you know, spans those boundaries, and I'm realizing you're a boundary Spanner, and I'm curious in those experiences that you've had so far, any like just favorite things that maybe were unexpected, you know, operating between multiple institutions, multiple locations, multiple structures, just spanning those boundaries that really brought some joy or excitement.

Temple Carter  
I would say a few things. One is seeing the aha moment. So one of the things that we did is we were fortunate to take a group of each a representative from every institution to the NACADA assessment Institute, and being able to have that opportunity to take individuals that had never been to the assessment Institute and building, almost like a cohort, a cohort, to where they went to the assessment Institute. They never met before, but they bonded together, and being able to see that with the individuals that they form, these relationships, these connections to where now they contact each other, if they have any issues or notice something that's something that I saw, that I that I got to participate with and help plan that I thought was really great, and I feel like that helped expand the boundaries to get people together on a specific subject, with assessment and being able to hop and connect.

Matt Markin  
Now, you were mentioning one of your previous answers about advisors. You know, you feel advisors should be more curious. And I was kind of thinking like with your theater background, does your role? You know, I'm sure you're you seem to be very creative person. So do you feel like your theater background plays into the work that you do?

Temple Carter  
Absolutely, even though I'm always like to be in front of the camera on stage that I have with my theater degree, I like to be behind the scenes. I think it absolutely helped with the creativity. I think it also helped with the structure to where I have to see the bigger picture with everything, and understand how each role operates within it to help create that final product. And that's what I definitely appreciate about my theater degree that helped me recognize and appreciate that everyone has a role in this ecosystem. But how can we all work together for that beautiful final product production at the end.

Ryan Scheckel  
And not just a theater background, which I know is from some context, a technical theater background when you're in directing and making those production sorts of decisions, but then a graduate degree in educational technology. I know the technology world moves so fast, and that was some time ago. But any particular, you know, lessons learned or perspectives gained from that Ed Tech perspective that you're still using today?

Temple Carter  
Yes, always be curious and go play that. That was the two things that stood out to me, and what I mean by being curious, because I know I mentioned that earlier, is be curious about the technology and see how it could. Could help you be more productive. How can it help you in certain situations? So don't be afraid of the technology. Just go play in it. I have to admit, I'm not the person that always reads the instructions and everything before jumping into something or putting, you know, Ikea furniture, together, but just go in and play and not be afraid of it and see, see what comes of it. That's what I learned from my Ed Tech. Is those two things specifically, because technology changes so quickly that you, you know, you can't be afraid of it. Go play with it. See what happens, and see how I can help you.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I think relates to that is like with with AI, and I would assume you probably get in your role, get a lot of questions about AI, and what do we do with it? And I know Ryan and I always talk about, like we should play with it. You know, it's a sandbox. Let's see, see what comes about. But I would imagine you have individuals that want to dive into it, others that are more hesitant. How do you help? You know, I guess advisors, institutions, leadership, across the board, try to figure out AI?

Temple Carter  
So AI, it's definitely here to stay. And as you mentioned, there's various levels to AI, I tell them to be curious with it. So like designing a training session specifically for AI, let's just play in it. Let's ask questions. What's the question that you have something with? You know you're advising, don't put any of the students information in there, because FERPA. But let's be curious about it and play with it first. And let's talk about how people have used it in their day to day to work, as far as like with advising, how can we share this knowledge base to say, AI is here, this is how I've been using it so it's less strenuous on somebody who's new to it or intimidated by it, if they hear other people say, this is what I've used it for. This is how I've used it in my advising work. And also the same thing for leaders as well too. We have to get the leaders on board for them to be able to build that environment for their advisors or their staff to be able to implement it or encourage them to use it.

Ryan Scheckel  
So this is the, I feel like a technology related question, but it's a little bit from a different perspective, Gigabyte, Megabyte, Kilobyte, like the dog names, I feel a little bit for Pogo being the odd one out there. But where did that come from?

Temple Carter  
So my husband and I, we bought a house a few years ago, a neighbor was there and moved out, but left the three puppies in the backyard, and we're like, we're not gonna leave them or give them to the shelter anything. So they came. So my husband is in the tech field, so I let him name them, and that's where Gigabyte, Megabyte and Kilobyte received their names. And then Pogo. Pogo was was there first. So he's still getting used to to the three puppies rolling around. He's five. They're one. So it's interesting dynamics going on in the house. 

Matt Markin  
So who named Pogo? 

Temple Carter  
My husband did as well too. So how can jump from Pogo to Megabyte, Gigabyte, Kilabyte?

Matt Markin  
Yeah, he was just in a certain mood that day.

Ryan Scheckel  
They came in a package deal that helps a lot, like because names and the words we choose matter so much to me. And I'm like, oh, but if they came as a package deal, then I'm like, Yeah, I would had to have found a theme as well. And I go that. I also noticed that in the middle of Pogo name is OG.

Matt Markin  
Ryan, how did, how did your dogs get their names?

Ryan Scheckel  
Oh, so our we have two litter mates, miniature schnauzers, and we had had a miniature schnauzer before our niece had named her, and we had adopted her when they had changed some things at home and and she named the original Miniature Schnauzer that we had in our house jewel. And then when we decided it was time to bring some new dogs into our home. We had the two litter mates, and we were looking for pair names, you know, girls. We considered a lot, but we decided to go with the honoring jewel and name them after Jules, so Ruby and Jade. It also helped that they were color coded, so we could tell them apart for a while, but, but I love the little insight that these sort of personal things give to us about who we are and how we think and and build community. Especially you mentioned that you're a storyteller, and I'm curious you know what stories you want, or think advisors could be telling about the work that we do. How can we shape our messaging as communicators in a narrative sense that can be strategic and intentional?

Temple Carter  
So that's an excellent question. I think advisors need to share their stories more, because they do have wonderful stories to tell. So not even just their origin stories how they got into the profession, but stories of their impact. And I think as advisors, we are always on the go. My thing is it's orientation, registration, graduation, repeat, with some policy changes sprinkled in. So sometimes we don't have the chance to stop and reflect and share those stories with each others, which are very impactful. And I think it's very important also for advice to share their stories, so that way people across institutions know the story of academic advising as a whole and what value we bring to the student success to the student success story. So I think in a whole that it is very important for advisors to tell their stories, telling the stories of the first time you met with a student. I can remember that story, the first time you maybe went to a conference or presented on a certain topic. There's so many ways to share those narratives with people. The important thing is sharing those with people and stopping reflecting and thinking about them.

Matt Markin  
Shameless plug, because Ryan asked a question about stories, and you're talking about sharing advisor stories. NACADA also has an amazing pocket guide called advising is forever that shares the many various stories and what advising professionals have learned in their time in higher ed. You can get that, I think it's only $5 so, yeah, please pick it up. And I'm sure it kind of connected with your professional development that you get questions about wellness and burnout? How do you address how do you address those?

Temple Carter  
So the way that I address those is by first acknowledging and, you know, thanking them for coming forward to say that they feel burnt out. Because sometimes I've seen advisors, and I can even say it myself, I wouldn't say that I was burnt out or stressed or anything, because I would feel like that that is looked frowned upon, that I'm complaining. So I acknowledge and thank them for coming to say that that's how they feel in that moment. And then from there, I see what level of burnout or not being motivated that they may be in in that moment. And from there, provide specific resources for that. So if someone says that they just don't feel motivated anymore, okay, asking those probing questions, going into more of a coaching mode and asking them, okay, why do you feel this way? What have you noticed? Okay, is it your day to day work? Is there other things and then from there, guiding the conversation to Okay, these are some resources that may be good for you, but not just the resources. How can we build an action plan off of that, some things that you're going to intentionally put in place to help get yourself out of this burnout phase? The other thing that I will say to that too is I. Also push that we think of students holistically with their well being and everything that they have in their experience. I have definitely pushed that we think holistically about our advisors as well too, including that well being component, and challenging advisors to say, Hey, what are you doing for yourself, for that work life balance? What breaks are you taking? What are you doing in your day to day, to help encouraging, encourage that wellness part. Because, like I said, I remember when I was an advisor, it was always go, go, go, go, go, go, present, go see students, go do this, go do that, and not stopping to take that time to take care of my myself and that wellness and trying to lead to not having burnout.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, there's so many times that I've been in my freshman seminar class talking about success in college for students and going, I'm glad I get to say this again so I can hear it said for myself, but I'm curious about your experiences in the classroom as well. You know, that's something that I personally find really enriching in my perspective of academic advising, my role as an educator at an institution, working with students in lots of ways. What did you take away from those experiences teaching the classroom, and what did you teach?

Temple Carter  
So I taught a few different classes. I taught everything from university seminar, which, oh, you have to love it with that freshman class coming in, all the way to seniors who were in their capstone course. So it was a general studies please do not quote me on the numbers like 4360, which is a career development class, which I loved. I love seeing those aha moments. One of my favorite times in the class is when we talked about salary, and people saying they're gonna make $100,000 once they retired, and then also saying taxes, what are those? What are those things? And I was like, let's have a conversation about this. Was always a fascinating conversation, and I truly enjoyed being in the classroom because it brought that different perspective, having that interaction with students and opening it up to a different style of teaching, having that discussion and making it very experimental, learning part of it. It brought out that creativity that I definitely, definitely loved. And I loved the discussions. Sometimes we wouldn't get to certain topics because I would open up a topic or a conversation and just let the students talk with each other, giving them that freedom in that room to explore and get to see other perspectives, and that's something I definitely loved in the classroom, because you have a little bit more time at the class than you do with an advising one on one session sometimes. So that's what I love about i.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, it definitely gives you a different environment. Did you ever have experience where you had, like, a class where everyone seemed very like timid or shy, and if so, how did you get them to open up in discussion?

Temple Carter  
Yes, all the time. I would ask them questions. What did you do this weekend? What? What's going on on campus? And kind of flip it back on them, or even starting out to where they start with partners, and it's easier to share with somebody, one on one, and then bring it to a big group, or starting an activity, to where it take their mind off of, oh, it's about me telling my opinion, let's talk about this activity, and then slowly, kind of inception them to kind of start talking broadly about the topic.

Ryan Scheckel  
Speaking of teaching and in the classroom, in your 12 member institutions and your other roles, or whatever, you share a little bit about your experience working with faculty advisors. Those who are primary role is instructional, but they also have an advising capacity. Have you had much experience working with them? What are their bigger challenges and frustrations along the way?

Temple Carter  
So a few of our institutions have faculty advising, and right now we're in the beginning stages, like I said, with the needs assessment and finding out what they need. But just from our listening session, our listening tour that we took about a year and a half ago, their needs are a little bit different than the professional academic advisors, some of the things that they mentioned that they want to know more of is just like the foundation pieces of advising. How do you balance the the instructional part of their role with the academic advising type things that's going on, that's required of them, and meeting with the students with the curriculum? So just finding a way to create some training and development specifically for them that would help them thrive in their roles.

Matt Markin  
Now I know I was asking earlier about, how do you address wellness when others have questions about it, but I was wondering, what do you do for your wellness?

Temple Carter  
That is a great question. I will go outside if. One point I was trying to get the pups that y'all mentioned into agility, it did not quite go well, because one went one way, one went the other one was doing something else. So getting to hang out with them is always great for the wellness, also checking in on people and just having those impromptu conversations with people I had maybe top two in a while. So that helps fill my bucket as well as going on walks, going near any types of big bodies of water, usually, in my background, I have a beach or something. And that also helps fill my bucket as well. And food, I'm sorry, the most important thing food, going to restaurants and trying out different foods and different things like that. And I just encourage advisors to find something that that helps keep them going, um, if it's writing, journaling, um, coloring, whatever it may be, do you have a favorite food? I do not. I don't discriminate with food. I will try anything at least once, but no favorite genre.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I one of my favorite things is when people ask me, Well, we're gonna get pizza. What kind of pizza? And I'm like, Oh, I like round pizza, but I'll also eat pizza that has corners.

Temple Carter  
So Well, I do have a question for y'all that I ask a lot of people in my training and development sessions, does pineapple belong on pizza?

Matt Markin  
Oh, that's the controversy. I'm gonna let Ryan start with that one.

Ryan Scheckel  
Yeah, I know what I thought when I was young, and when I was young, I thought those squishy, wet, sweet things weren't what pizza was, but I am almost certain that the last pizza I ordered was a Hawaiian style pizza. So you know, things change as you get older. And like you said, I don't discriminate. If it tastes good, let's go.

Matt Markin  
So my partner, Richard, will say, Yes, it does belong on a pizza. He loves pineapple. So yeah, he would say, yes. I just argue with them, just for the fun of it, and say no, but secretly, I will eat it if I'm hungry, because I'm like, It's pizza. I typically don't eat mushrooms, but if it's on pizza, I'll eat it. So if it's, if it's, it's on the pie, there you go. What about you, Temple?

Temple Carter  
Oh, okay, I'm looking at this. I don't like it, but I also never tried it either. So my friends called me out on that the other day. They're like, How can you say you don't like it, but I'm like, it's sweet. It doesn't belong on this. So, yeah, they gave me a beer full about not trying.

Matt Markin  
Well, we we have you on record saying that you would write stuff that you just want. So maybe at some point.

Ryan Scheckel  
We have a plan for Vegas. Yeah, you know, I think there's, there's so many things that when we imagine the potential, that was one of the words that was early as we're reading your bio, the potential of being open, of willing to say, being willing to say yes, and you know, it's it's so hard sometimes, when we're responsible for so much so frequently in academic advising, to not protect ourselves in some way. And I think what is sometimes the best protection is just investing in your capacity to deliver by finding the things that you know fill your bucket, that sharpen your saw, that really give you some sort of joy and purpose and direction, and I know temple as we've had our conversation today, you shared lots of Different ways that your educational background, your work experience, your life outside of those things. Really do that? How? How, when you're responsible for advisor, training and development, do you balance all the needs? Is there a particular strategy you found when developing organizational and intentional answers to these many needs. How do you address them all without getting overwhelmed by them?

Temple Carter  
That's a wonderful question, because going back to what she said, I do feel like as even as advisors. When I was an advisor, there were so many balls in the air, juggling, I would say right now, the way that I organize or find priorities is by first starting with the department goals and see how can I fit what I'm doing to help us accomplish our overall goals, what that's going to look like, and from there, that helps me decide what's a priority. Be not saying all the requests and things that comes in is not a priority, but prioritize to say, Okay, this is what I can commit to, and then letting some of the lower priorities know. Hey, I want to work on this. I want to help you with this. I want to get to this, but it's going to take some time, because I have to get to this first so communicating with people so they know where they are on the list and that they're not forgotten. We care about them, but I have to get to this specific meeting first, because it's going to help us reach this goal, and then get to everything else, and that's the way that I do it, just to make sure people understand where they are in the prioritization list, and also using tools like Asana, which is a project management tool. Love it because it sends me reminders, notifications, and it's very, very helpful to keep everything kind of in order, on task.

Matt Markin  
Communicate. Just keep people in the loop. Why is that such a hard concept for some people to fathom. But temple, we covered a lot of stuff in this interview. It's so great to talk to you virtually. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person in Vegas. You know, Ryan has spoken so highly of you, and so it was like we got to have temple on the podcast. So thank you so much for being on the podcast with us.

Temple Carter  
Thank you for having me.