Ep. 8 - Isabelle Rena Langham, University of Tennessee Knoxville

🎙️ The Pickup Meeting: “From Songwriting Dreams to Student Success — A Conversation with Isabelle Langham”

In this lively and laughter-filled episode, Brody and Kevin welcome the incredible Isabelle Rena Langham, Director of Advising and Technology Initiatives at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Isabelle shares her journey from aspiring songwriter to higher ed changemaker, revealing how she blends creativity, technology, and heart to empower students and teams alike.

Expect plenty of laughs (yes, AirPods and cats make cameo appearances 🐱), bourbon recommendations 🥃, and insights on how to keep human connection at the center of innovation. Whether you’re headed to the NACADA Annual Conference or just need a boost of positivity, this episode reminds us all to embrace the journey, not just the goal.

🎧 Tune in for stories, wisdom, and a few karaoke-worthy moments!

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

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
And away we go. It's another meeting here together, Brody, how you doing this morning? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well I'm doing okay. I'm running a little late. 

Kevin Thomas  
I know if we were doing this for a live audience, we would be getting heckled and jeered because we had to wait on Brody to get his stuff together this morning. Yeah, I'm even filming from home today. I know this is different, and it's really kind of creepy for the visual audience or for the audio audience. Maybe visual audience could see it for the audio audience, Brody's got a closet door behind him that I keep waiting for someone to jump out of because it's kind of cracked open.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah. And I have my cats too, but I've locked my cats out. That's good. That's good. So there'll be no cat entries into this video version of the podcast, that's for sure. 

Kevin Thomas  
So what's been good lately? You've been doing some traveling. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I have been. We were having this conversation, and I really enjoy staying in hotels, but some people don't like that. So are hotels good or not? Like my hotel? I love being in a hotel. It's like I'm being pampered at every step of the way, especially if you're in a good one.

Kevin Thomas  
What are you doing in hotels that you feel like you're being pampered every step of the way?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, the room is clean then and then they clean it every day. Usually there's food just down below that. I don't have to cook or make, right? Like, if it's a if there's a nice restaurant attached. I mean, I've stayed at some great places.

Kevin Thomas  
I, for sure, feel like I've evolved in. It used to be, give me a bed to sleep in, give me the hotel, and I'll be fine. And I wouldn't say that I'm to the extent that my wife is where my wife is really, really particular about how clean it is and the ratings that are at the hotel and what it's going to look like, and I'm not to that level, although bless bless her for that, because we've stayed in some nicer hotels because of those decisions. But now I'm at this point where, recently, I stayed in a hotel, and I was very ready to leave at the end of the timeframe I was for a conference, I was ready to go because that hotel was garbage. And so I, I get what you're saying, that sometimes it's just very nice, very fun to have a clean room and a comfortable bed, and you're you got the TV to yourself, and you're just watching whatever. And then sometimes it's like, Why does it smell this way?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Fair enough. I mean, crisp sheets usually like, and if you have two beds, like two queens, my wife and I will sometimes sleep in different beds, like, because now you have the whole bed to yourself. Like, I share beds with I share the bed with my cats and my dog and, like, you get into a hotel and you got the bed to yourself. I mean, you can just sprawl out. You can take a shower. I mean, the hot shower can be endless. You don't have to iron your clothes, because you put your clothes in the hot shower room, right? You can let that, that water run forever. It's, it's fantastic.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh my gosh, man. Recently, I had a suit with me, and I was and I put packed it, and I said, I'm going to steam my suit and, you know, like, I'm just gonna make sure that it's nice and wrinkle free for the next day. It's great. I get into the bathroom, I turn on the hot water, and I sit down, and I start to read and just watch TV, and I get zoned in. And it's like, I don't, I don't know how much longer it was, my wife said, Hey, are you gonna check your suit? And I go in there, and it is. It's like a sauna is occurring, like the water's dripping from the ceiling, things are falling it just there was so much moisture in the air. It was out of control. That's problematic, Kevin, it is. It was problematic in there was water on the floor, like people could have fallen. It was a hazard.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, that's not great, so, you know, but yeah, when you stay in a great hotel, I mean, it is a great experience. And and to me, like the service, like I think about the JW Marriott, then the Cotter Region Five conference this past April was in downtown Chicago. The hotel we stayed at had just an amazing restaurant below, below us, and the food was so great. I hardly even left the place.

Kevin Thomas  
You were you were landlocked. The hotel provided all, yeah, it's true. It's true. So when you were in Chicago, like, what was your go to food items? Like, do you have those when, when you're in that area?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, we were talking, I mean, I love a good hot dog. We were talking about hot dogs the other day. I mean, that's not automatically my go to but the one thing that we talked about the other day on the phone was, like, what do you put on a hot dog?

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah. It, yeah, I listen. I'm Yeah. I feel like this is a trap of how we're going to be judged. It is, I would say I'm pretty anti catch up in all things. I am not a catch up person. I really despise it. Really, yeah, and I don't want it on anything. And if I'm using ketchup, it means the thing that I'm dipping in it is also terrible.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Ketchup with fries are great. Never not on, not on a hot dog, though. Okay, so what are you putting on a hot dog? I'm pretty simple, mustard and relish is kind of my go to. How about you?

Kevin Thomas  
I don't know that I've ever put relish on anything it. This may be a thing that I've never tasted and just think is nasty. It's delicious. What does relish taste like? Describe it for the audience, it's like, chopped up pickles. Oh, I probably would like it. Is it too? Is it sweeter? Though that's what I feel like it is.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, you can get dill relish or sweet relish, for sure. 

Kevin Thomas  
I'm being judged by the audience at this moment. How have you never eaten relish and also never had coffee? You know, those type of things.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
How can you not enjoy ketchup on a hamburger? Though? Come on.

Kevin Thomas  
No, I like mustard and then, like, I think a variety of sauces. But that's an interesting thing, because, like, if I go to a ball game, like, if I go to a baseball game, I'm really likely to get a hot dog, because there's nothing like a ballpark hot dog. I don't know how they do it. There's some memories from growing up as a kid and going to St Louis Cardinal games. But I'm not putting anything on it in at all. Like, I just the hot dog is good. And then I'll see these pictures of, like, the like, really, bougie and delicate hot dogs. And they've got all of this stuff and a ginormous bun. And I'm like, that looks delicious, but I never order that. Like, I don't know why, but I never order that. I don't need that much. People have said, chili dogs. I'm pretty simple. Put some mustard on the hot dog. I'm good.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
The Skyline chili dogs are great. Have you had Skyline?

Kevin Thomas  
I know I don't understand it. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Is it like St Louis pizza? 

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, where I also don't understand that, because that's garbage.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
St Louis pizza is garbage. There's we have now ruined a couple of listening areas for sure.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, our listening base is not heavily in St Louis, because we're just trashing St Louis style pizza.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Bacon, bacon around my hot dog, definitely. I mean, that's what I go to when I go to Bush stadium, that bacon wrapped hot dog is amazing.

Kevin Thomas  
But isn't, isn't the truth of this is, like you could put bacon around anything, and the answer is probably yes.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes, that's right. I mean, we're putting it on donuts. Now, I mean, I know we've talked about donuts before, but they put bacon on donuts.

Kevin Thomas  
Now, yeah, I think you could put bacon around a tire and you probably eat it.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So I would give it a go, I think.

Kevin Thomas  
Very chewy.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
But the bacon tastes great. Yeah, are we ready? Maybe to bring a guest on?

Kevin Thomas  
I think we're ready, yeah? Like, okay, let's do this thing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Let's do it. I'm really excited about our guest today. You know, today we're joined by Isabelle Rena Langham, Director of Advising and technology initiatives in the Division of Student Success at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Isabelle leads their efforts to integrate advising technology and strategic student support in a way that centers relationships with scaling impact. She's a first generation college graduate like myself. She brings experience across higher ed, nonprofit and cross sector leadership, and she's known for her data informed people first approach. And you've been involved in Nakata national advising conversations, fellow administrator Institute faculty member. You were in the ELP program, and I got a chance to kind of be a mentor to you in that regard. And now look at you. Look at us. We're all together, kind of doing the pickup meeting. Welcome to the show.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I'm happy to be here with the coolest guys in NACADA, right?

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, there's the shirt we need. We just need to self own that Brody, that's right. I don't know that that's like a badge of honor, because, you know, there's not that many guys in Nakata. It feels like sometimes, but we'll take coolest guys in NACADA.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, that's true.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
That shirt would be cool. I mean, really, just as cool as the one I'm wearing. I was sharing this with someone early. I said, You know what? This is an organ trail shirt, right? I like it education. You have to think of Oregon Trail, right?

Kevin Thomas  
And I love how this has become, like a real cultural thing, and like generations are now like using Oregon Trail in a lot of ways. I got a pin recently. And for folks that don't know, I collect lapel pins, we've got like, 600 700 Or lapel pins, and it's an Oregon Trail one that says you died of dysentery. 

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Who didn't die of dysentery at one point in time on the Oregon Trail?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Everyone.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Wasn't that the default in the Oregon Trail. I mean, didn't? Almost everybody die of dysentery on the Oregon Trail.

Kevin Thomas  
If you didn't, you didn't grow up in that time frame.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah. I mean, I lived the Oregon Trail. So what are we talking about? That's how old I am.

Kevin Thomas  
Yes, that's right. I don't even have to make the old jokes you're making. Them for Me, it's amazing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'm showing some initiative today, Kevin, you know, what can I do?

Kevin Thomas  
I'm really worried about that. How this recording is going to go, for folks that don't know we're recording on a Friday, it's pretty early in the morning, and I feel like we're loopier than normal, and so who knows how this is going to go. But Isabel, we're so pumped that you're with us. Let's start some things off. Let's have some fun. What would surprise young Isabella about the role that you've gotten to today. What would she say, looking at at that journey?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, I think young Isabelle would say, we're not a songwriter. What happened to that?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I'm not the goalkeeper of the US National Team. How'd that happen?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Yeah, what? What happened? What happened to that? One of the things that is crazy, though it's actually one of the things that I think that brought me into the advising space, is that earlier on in my journey, I was working at a nonprofit agency, and it was, it was a nonprofit agency that focused on leadership, arts and academics. Those are the three pillars of the nonprofit. And so it is also a place in Nashville that has literally raised a lot of talent that have gone on to do so many amazing things in the entertainment industry. And so it was all of these things were combined, right? And so I'm working, I mean, I'm in college in my third year, and had no intentions of becoming an advisor at this time in my life, and really at this nonprofit, is where I say I got bit by the bug, because this is what I fell in love with, working with young people and really just understanding what community service really is in terms of how we approach it as public servants. And so just really thinking through all those things, I was able to put aside all of the things that you think are your success indicators right, the things that you think are the metrics that you're supposed to hit those milestones. And I really was able to just kind of focus in on actually having fun. I was having fun in my job. I enjoy working with people, and when I got rid of all of the labels, that's when I understood that I was really hitting my sweet spot. And later on in my career, I realized that that was the thing that I also used to help students. I didn't know that I was doing it until after a while. It was actually when I was working in Las Vegas at UNLV, and I started telling students to think about, you know, forget the labels, right? Like, just think about who you are. And I think that, if I would have to sum up anything about young Isabella and Isabella now is that I've been very consistent, and I didn't, course, I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know this is what I was doing, but I was just really heavily relying on the idea of, who are you as a person, and how do you bring that into a space? And so I think that Isabella young, Isabelle would be surprised that we're not a songwriter, right? But, but at the same time, I've been very fortunate to bring that element of creativity. So I think young Isabella would be very proud of me.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, I think so too. I think that's great.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So Isabelle, you've had roots kind of working in HBCU context, but now you're leading a central system level role at utk. That's very different. But what's stayed consistent, maybe in your purpose across those environments?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, definitely. What I was just talking about in terms of, in terms of, like, really understanding the who I am as a person and how I show up in that space. I'm very mission driven, definitely. And one of the good things about being at utk is that it is a strengths based institution where the leadership really invests in not just what strengths mean to students, but what it means to the staff. And that is huge, this game changer. We're constantly in our field. We're always talking to students, encouraging them, helping them, guiding them in a way of understanding who they are, but it's a different level of understanding when your leaders are actually investing in you, understanding who you are and making sure that you are aligning in those spaces. I think that is that is great for lots of reasons right now. Just for development, but just even for wellness and satisfaction, which reduces turnover, right? And it also just increases your outcomes as well. The people are satisfied, if they are happy about what they're doing and they are feeling some type of meaningful connection to it, then they can typically continue, you know, being successful in what they're doing. And so I think that the difference with being at an HBCU, where I am now is that I was a unit director at the HBCU, right at tsu, but it was also my alma mater. So as with with anything, sometimes we go into a position and, you know, I'd say, oh, we'll be here 234, years, we'll have, like, a time limit of what that looks like. But when I went to tsu, I also had a time limit I was, I was just moving back from the West Coast and coming back to the south, and it was a dream of mine to actually serve at my undergraduate alma mater, which is tsu, Tennessee State University. And so I wanted to give back, you know, in the same place that had given so much to me, and that two year kind of deal that I thought I was making turned into seven years. And so during that time, I what I kept, what I kept realizing was that there was always some need, right? Sometimes we look at it as, you know, there's always a problem to fix, you know, something to find a solution for. But instead, I found that there was always a need. There was something new about every cohort that was coming in. And I felt like there was something I could give, right until there was, there was the time that I felt like, you know, I had given all of the things that I could give at that time, you know, to my institution, and then I transitioned to somewhere else. That's what really moves me. And it's the same thing that I bring into the space at utk, is that, you know, I am definitely driven by, what is it that I can bring, right? Because there's something that I can bring, that no one else can bring. There's something that someone on my team can bring, that no one else can bring. You know, how do we bring those things together and really solve for the need right, the needs of today, the needs of tomorrow? And so those, those are the things that I find that they ground me.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I love that strengths based approach, that idea that all of us have unique gifts to bring to the table. That's fantastic.

Kevin Thomas  
Your job right now. And some of the story that you're talking about just strikes me is very based in human connection and human flow of of your work. And so right now you oversee both systems and human workflows. And so I'm curious, because I think this is a delicate balance in the work we do, like, how do you ensure that technology enhances human connection rather than eroding it?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, that's a great question.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, thanks so much. Will we talk more about my great question. I didn't get that I know, all right, like, how about that?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Brody, it was your question was average satisfactory. But Kevin, yours was a great question.

Kevin Thomas  
Yes, Brody, hold on, just stay over there. Your average question will be next. Isabelle has to answer this one.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
This great question.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Y'all have to stop making me laugh because every time I laugh, my airpod is coming off. 

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, your next question, Brody also can't be great or funny.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Doggone it.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Okay, let me think now I'm trying to remember the question.

Kevin Thomas  
Here we go. I'm gonna ask it in a very great way. How do you ensure technology enhances human connection rather than eroding it?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Okay, wonderful, and thank you for making the question great again. Okay, well, I think it's really just approaching it from a human lens, right, bringing the humanism into into the tech space. It, for me, really just means that everything that we do are we thinking about the experience, the experience of students, that the experience of the user from the professional staff space, right? It always has to think about like, what are, what are the what's the workflow to get us from point A to point B, but within that, that workflow, then, how is the user experiencing? It? Always thinking about that for me, is where I can't think about the workflow and not think about the people. So that's one of the great things that I love about being in this particular role, because I get to work with a really, really smart CRM team. And this is a shout out. I hope that they watch this, because they are great. I get to work with a really good CRM team because. Utk transition from navigate to Salesforce. So and our CRM team, like I said, really, really smart. And when we come together, we are hashing out different things. We talk through them. And it's not a full on just technical based type of conversation where we're just talking about functionality, but that functionality includes, well, when we do this, how will the user really experience this, like when they click on this, what actually happens? And then, what are the questions do they have? Because that's, you know, when you have technology based initiatives. To me, the biggest thing that I think that happens that is, like, the downfall with most institutions is that they're always quick to launch something very fast, like we want to get it out, yeah, as if tomorrow's not coming, right? Yeah. And so. And the way that we launch a thing really, you know, determines how our users, you know, find it reliable or or something that they even want to interact with and, and you don't want to create a sour taste in your users mouth or experience, Right, just by trying to launch something really fast. So the humanism side of that really is just always thinking about the people who are interacting with it from multiple angles, even our tech people, right? Because we know that our tech people sometimes will not think about what the students are thinking about. They're like, oh, there's nothing wrong with the tech, right? That's usually the answer. The tech is fine. That means it's something else. Well, not necessarily. And so you need more roles like mine that can advocate for what happens in the advising space, what happens in the student space, so that you can, you can marry those things.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think the other thing, when we think about new tech, to me, there's always a reluctance, or there has seemed to be reluctance from at least a portion of advising teams. When you're bringing in new new technology, right? They don't automatically see the purpose or the reasoning behind things, but that data, those feedback loops, like early alert, predictive analytics, advisor dashboards. How do you help advisors? Kind of use that information to inform continuous improvement of advising services? Because I think a lot of times we don't, we don't want to use the tech, even if it's going to help us be more efficient in the work.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Yeah. Also, great question, Brody.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, now we're just handing them out, like, handshakes on the Great British Bake Off. No, I'm kidding. 

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I do that right with with new tech, I think helping them to, like, really understand, like, how it's beneficial for them is really just using simple language. We use a lot of jargon. I mean, we use a lot of acronyms. We use just a lot of things that we throw things at people and act like they understand it and and that's just across the board, with a lot of things that we do and say, like, can't we just talk plainly with each other sometimes, you know, laugh a little bit and make it, you know, not so serious. I mean, yes, we're dealing with serious things, but every time we have a conversation, it doesn't have to be this overwhelming thing, like, right? It doesn't have to be this huge, complex thing. I think that's a part of the advising administrators role is to really make complex things simple as much as possible and so and especially with new technology, it's really just helping people understand what it is. Again, back to those needs, right? Solving for those needs, what is it that you need? Let me show you how you can solve for this need, right? The functionality piece that's honestly just making sure that people, in terms of the technical experience that's the training is for, is to and honestly, we don't do a great job at training our administrators. We don't do enough of it. We do great at point, yeah, we do great at training our advisor one levels, maybe coordinators, but when you get to assistant director and above, and even sometimes coordinators at some institutions, we don't do a great job at doing at creating some type of ongoing training. We do an initial onboarding. They get some in. Do you know how to do this, especially from the informational pieces. You know that from our components, right? But beyond that, we don't do a great job at at training them. And if you look at other other fields, there's always some type of robust training that is involved with a. Oh, what is he doing?

Kevin Thomas  
The cat's coming in. Sorry. He said he locked the cats out, and all of a sudden, and during the last question you were answering, I heard a meow, and I'm like, Uh oh, here we go. For audio. Audience, Brody's now holding cats. He has become a cat guy.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
They love me. Yeah, the cat is interested in our conversation.

Kevin Thomas  
Your answer is so just interesting and wonderful that the cat now needs to know more about advising and tech and change. Sorry to interrupt the answer there. Now you got to find your focus again.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, it's all good. I was just talking about training. I think that the cat understands very well, and that's why the cat came out at this point, that it is something so needed. You know, we really do have to do a better job at making sure that our training initiatives include our administrators as well, right? Because that's why a lot of times when they're looking at like, if they're using navigator, if they're using Salesforce, Starfish, whatever platform they're using, they often don't know what to look for, right, or how to navigate whatever reports that they need. And let's be honest, and I know this was my experience, and probably several other people out there. I remember when we were doing the EAB implementation, like maybe seven years ago, yeah, and, and it seems like it was just yesterday, but during that time, I remember we were just trying to figure out what to put in each field to generate the report that we needed, and sometimes we weren't even sure if the data was correct right, because then we were also relying on, you know, banner to, you know, to be have the cleanest data that we need, you know, so all of these different things. And so rather than keeping people in the dark about it, you know, I think that it's really just every administrator one needs a tech person? That's true, especially now, I think so. But then also having someone that understands assessment and report from the space of like, when we get this from, you know, our platforms, what does this really mean? And then, how can we make this mean something for us, like I said, now and then, also for for future development.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I think it's, it's an interesting thing that we talk about with the roles that we're in, and the fact that we've all been a part of tech implementation or tech that doesn't necessarily go the way that you want it to, and your points that you bring up on administrators that work within that and things that they need. It to me is kind of fascinating, because you get down to what reports do I get? How do I pull data? You know, those things and the accuracy of I think back frequently, and I think it's just going to be the way that the world works for a while, but we start to panic with the AI things that are coming on right now. And you hear that from various folks, and when technology is being talked about, you know, when I walked by vendor booths at a conference, and every single one of them was, we have AI, yeah, we all have AI, calm, that's right, there's no need to flex. And so, you know, it's one of those things where, but I think back to the user that you were talking about initially in that advisor, and when we were, you know, onboarding a degree audit system, back in my time at WKU, you know, I would hear frequently, well, this is going to replace my job. This is going to take it away. And that's why I think that that conversation we were having about enhancing human connection. That's the technology, part of it, through all the anxiety that's occurring, occurring at that moment, how are we enhancing the human connection with the things that we're using to support the Student Success efforts? Those are the things I think get really powerful in our work. There should probably be a question coming. Got it? Okay?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So I think that. I think that point is really important. Kevin, it's 100% right? I presented on that this spring at Region Five, right? AI is not going to erode our connection with humans. It's it's hopefully going to enhance it. It's going to allow us to have better conversations, the real conversations we want to have with students as advisors. And so as long as we're as long as we're training and teaching and working with advisors to understand that and helping them clearly think about how AI is going to enhance their role and give them role specific training, I think that AI is going to be a really helpful tool in the advising space.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Yeah, I think it also enhance, I know we talk about students a lot, but I think that it'll also enhance, you know, our strategic decision making in terms of how we are structuring our offices as well. Because, like, for example, we're just talking about, like, reports, right? And assessment, yeah. There's so many advising offices that don't have an assessment specialist to help with some of those things, and they really do need it right especially as we continue to move forward. There's so many things that AI can do, and there are things that we can train AI to do as well, but AI can only be trained from the sources that we have, and if our sources aren't aren't great, then it's hard for AI to pull information, even from from things like trying to create an FAQ right as an example, like your sources have to be great, which means that someone has to manage that, someone has to constantly monitor that, update it. And so we have to think strategically about, how do we even get staff around certain things so that we can make AI work for us?

Kevin Thomas  
paths have connected because of NACADA and the NACADA world. And so as this episode is releasing, the annual conference is just a couple days away, and so I'm curious. Brody talked about your involvement with the administrators Institute, the Emerging Leaders Program. How has that NACADA network shaped your thinking and your career?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
John Sauter was my ELP mentor, and Brody, yes, yeah. And Brody and Jeff Elliott kind of adopted me during the process as well, and, and that's, that's the power of that, that type of network. And it wasn't a thing where, well, let me say this, I remember when I applied to be a part of the ELP. And I know that there are always, like, especially, you know, during that time, there were a lot of applicants, right? And so you never know, and you wonder whether or not if you'll get selected. And I didn't have like, a ton of NACADA experience. I wasn't I had consistent experience in terms of volunteering, in a way, but I I wasn't a, like, a region chair, or any, any of those types of things. I wasn't over committee at all. And so I was like, Oh, I won't get selected. You know, I said, let me just try anyway. Let me just try anyway, and the reason why I even thought about doing it was because I wanted to connect more with other practitioners. I wanted to understand what they were doing. And it was more than just, let me just shoot you an email and find out, because the college, as we know, is good at sharing resources, but I really wanted to connect with with other people, and find out more about like their experience, and what they think about advising. Because I, of course, I stumbled into it like other people, and so I'm always interested in those, those stories. And so just being a part of NACADA, I think that especially with the ELP, what I found was that I had John, who was my assigned mentor, right? And he worked with me on specific goals. And then there was, like, Brody showed up, and then Jeff Elliott showed up and and so it wasn't a well, I'm not your mentor, so I can't talk to you. I'm not your mentor. So you know, I can't, you know, share information with you. Everyone was so personable, and that's what I found to be the biggest benefit of just being active in a NACADA, whether it's ELP or anything, is that you'll see these like, even like a Jenny bloom. If you know anything about appreciative advising, then you know, like Jenny Bloom, right? This is a big name, and in our world, in our field, and at the same time, you know, you can walk by Jenny and talk to Jenny and, you know, at a conference. And sometimes what I realized was that one time, what happened to me was that I didn't know who Jenny was, and I was just talking to her, and it was, oh, this is Jenny bloom, you know, right? It normalizes, you know, like our experiences with each other, that we're all in it together. You know, no one is up here and someone is down here, like we're all in it together. We're all trying to advance the field in our own individual ways. And it seems like there's just this full current of encouragement that, you know, just really is just surging through to just remind people to just be who they are and bring that to the table and we continue to advance the field together.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So Isabelle, I think that's such a great point. You know, I I think about my service and why I started to get involved in Nakata almost 25 years ago. And look, it was for purely selfish reasons. I just I wanted to be better at my job. And the way you get better at your job is by connecting to people that are doing the same kind of work that you're doing. I mean, it's such a great point, and I think we forget that, like when we go to NACADA conferences, you know, or we're trying to get involved in the associate. Which has been nothing but a second family to me. But the piece that's really important that we sometimes forget about is eventually we have to go back to our spaces and do the work, right? We have to try to be successful in the way that you do that is you build those networks and then you lean on them. I mean, that's even the rationale behind this pickup meeting, you have Kevin and I talk a couple days a week, because sometimes we got problems, and there aren't a lot of people that can help us get to the answers to those problems. I mean, Kevin's terrible at it. I call him with a problem, and he doesn't, he doesn't help me at all, but, but he is at least one guy that I can count on to listen.

Kevin Thomas  
I love it, Brody, you're right. I provide no answers, and that's why you keep calling and I keep answering. The whole NACADA celebrity aspect of things to me, makes me reflect back on I think I went to a conference with a good colleague, Tyler Phelps. I think I've mentioned him before and walking around and it's like, Hey, Jenny bloom, how's it going? And he's like, that's Jenny bloom, yeah, you should go say hi, instead of being weird and whispering about, you know, it's like, oh, there's Charlie Nutt. And so I was thinking about those people that he was talking about. And so I just as as we're having a conversation, I looked up and I said big names in the academic advising community. And I was like, I'm curious who's going to come up. And there's some there's no surprises, right? Virginia Gordon's on the list, and previous guests, Marsha Miller and Karen Sullivan Vance and and then it gets down to noteworthy figures from NACADA. And it says, Brody Broshears. AI says it's you, Brody. I don't believe it for one second. I'm gonna have to take a screenshot of this because I'm sitting there going, it is Brody Broshears. That can't be true. How much are you paying AI for these moments?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I don't know. I mean Kevin, the one thing I want to be like 100% like you talked about meeting Jenny bloom, this is not a lie. My first annual conference was in 1999 in Denver, and I think I went with one other colleague, but we got separated at check in, and legitimately, the first person I spoke to at the annual conference in NACADA in 1999 Charlie Nutt. I bumped right into Charlie Nutt, and he's like, he's like, hello, who are you? And I was telling him, and I had no idea who he was. And then he gets up and starts talking to the annual conference. I'm like, holy moly, I was talking to the guy, like, the guy who's doing this. It was surreal. I mean, he didn't tell me, I'm the executive director NACADA. He just said, Hey, how's it going? Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you here? It was great.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Yeah, it's amazing how those things happen. I mean, when I think about, like, really, how I bumped into, like, Kim Smith and Tara and Dana, like, I bumped into Dana, like, honestly, just in a line, and she was asking me about something that I had in my hand, and that really sparked the conversation. I had no clue who she was, and, you know, and Dana is super cool. It's like, it's, there's this huge community of people that are just really great, even my own, my AVP at UTK right now, I didn't realize it until, honestly, it was after I had accepted, you know, the role at utk, that there was a connection with with my my supervisor, Dr. Melissa Ervin, very, very smart. She's hilarious. She's like, this tech guru and advising guru at the same time. And so she, she and John Sauter, my ELP mentor, you know, they, they had a connection through NACADA from, you know, some years ago, where they wrote some things together. And it is, it is so amazing. Like, how big this, this community, really is. And at the same time, you don't know who some of these people are until you're just kind of like, walking around or bumping, you know, and and it's just what I found, like I said it to be, is just a place where you really can just connect with someone in California. You can connect with someone you know, in Canada, then someone in Mississippi, someone at a community college, someone at you know, a four year public and all of these experiences when they when they come together, and they come to you, they come to you in a way that you really can just, just like you said, bro, they like, really help you to be better at your job, and even honestly, help you to be even great as a human, just how you approach things in the world, how you approach your work and helping others.

Kevin Thomas  
Yes, I couldn't agree more. I really couldn't, and you said it very well. So as we get closer to some fun questions, not that these haven't been fun, they've been great, but I don't know if they've been fun, but when, when you go home at night, Isabelle, how do you measure whether your day move the needle towards student success. 

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Kevin, that's a fun question. 

Kevin Thomas  
No, that's the last one. This is the last one. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, Kevin, that was great. I loved it.

Kevin Thomas  
That's, I got great question earlier, and now this one's like this one don't use again. Got it?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I mean, I think that, you know, every day is different, and for me, one I didn't need. I didn't need my cliftonstrengths assessment to tell me that I was an idea maker or right, I did all the time. And so I think success for me is being able to prioritize. You know, like today, was I able to prioritize what needed to be prioritized today? Because I have a million ideas a day, and we know that idea fatigue and initiative. Fatigue are two things that can overwhelm anyone, and so for me, when the day ends, I want to know whether or not if I prioritize what needed to be prioritized today, and was I able to say with great confidence that something else that I held off for tomorrow was a good decision, right? That's what, what helps me at the at the end of the day, in terms of pushing the needle, because my job, the way that my job is, in terms of, like, having multiple projects, it is critical that I think about how I prioritize, like what I'm doing throughout the day, because, also, as an administrator, as we know, we get caught up in tons of meetings as well. So and what I have learned to do, what I try to do most now, is, is that, you know, how do I also show up for myself with a better, you know, balance, you know, so I'm not up in the middle of the night trying to finish something that I needed to do today, right? Because I was in eight meetings today. And so if I can, if I can prioritize in a way that I feel good about it at the end of the day, then that was a success to me.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Now we're going to go to fun, right Kevin?

Kevin Thomas  
Let's go. Let's, let's fund this thing up. So

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
you're, you're a bourbon person, right Isabelle?

Speaker 1  
I am. I am. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Do you have a favorite, or is there, is there a drink that you like mixing bourbon with, right? Like, give us the scoop. Like, what's, what's, what's your go to?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
two drinks are my favorite. One is a sidecar with bourbon, okay, instead of cognac, right? It's usually made with cognac, and so I like a sidecar with bourbon. I also like something that's called a gold rush, which is like bourbon, lemon, a little simple syrup with honey. Oh, that sounds amazing. It is, I think I keep you behind that, yes. And in terms of, like, just a favorite bourbon, Do I really have a favorite? Is this like I've had allocated.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
There are so many.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
There are, and I really do like, in terms of like, if I'm going to mix it with something I love, a good Eagle, rare to mix with because it's really smooth, it's simple, it doesn't have a ton of bite. But if I'm sipping for some bite, then I'll do something else, like a wooden veil or something.

Kevin Thomas  
But okay, you could have just gone with you have a favorite bourbon, and just said yes, and lots of them.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I mean, he, he took me down the road, you know, asking someone about their favorite food, right?

Kevin Thomas  
Or it's bad news, all right, so if they made a film about you, who would you cast as you, and will we get a scene of you jam into a playlist that you just created and coloring at your desk, just solving the world's problems. Who would play you?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Carrie Washington, oh, there, yeah. She has such a versatile, a versatile background, and like all of the roles she's played, I think that, you know, she could, she could bring a lot of the different elements of me to film. I like it, yeah, like that, artsy, the intellectual, like all of those things, like, just bring it all in.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Isabelle, do you have a favorite college or professional sports team?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
So I am a Saints fan. I know you said college, but. Or professional, it's good, right? Yes, I'm a Saints fan because I grew up about an hour from New Orleans in a place called Moss Point, Mississippi, very proud of my hometown. It's on the Gulf Coast, and so I grew up with a T shirt at like age four that said, Who that? And I went around the house saying, Who that? Talking about beating the saints, right? Yeah, so that's my team.

Kevin Thomas  
That's, that's great of your poor team right now. They're, they're struggling.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Hey, you know we're still sending good vibes and thoughts and all of the things.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
They have won a Super Bowl. They have won a Super Bowl more recently than the Vikings and the dolphins, that's for sure.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I know he has said Vikings behind him.

Kevin Thomas  
I was gonna say, you know, it's hard to have a guest on here that's cheering for a football team that has less wins than the dolphins. But, yeah, but this is the case. Sorry, Isabelle.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
It's like the Vikings in that part of the world, the Packers actually doing really good this season. So Kevin, you don't like that, right?

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, he doesn't like that. Not a fan, no. But listen, you know, not all teams can play for ties, and so for our sports fans that just watched the tie recently, thanks, pack.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Hey, you're a new soccer fan. You should be used to ties.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, guys. So we're going to have a whole host of our listeners that are going to be joining us in Vegas here in the next few days. Yeah, what are those two or three? And I bet it's going to go more than that, two or three things that people should do in Vegas that maybe they don't think about that, you know, because you lived there for several years.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, yeah, definitely visit Red Rocks, if you can, just rent a car for like, a day, just drive out and see it is absolutely beautiful. There's also a Wetlands Park that a lot of people don't know about. It's different, you know. But if you like nature, the Wetlands Park is also something that is pretty cool. Let's see. Now, you said something to do, but I was thinking about food too. Best barbecue hands down is that John mules road kill grill, hands down it's in North Las Vegas. Absolutely the best barbecue, not just in Vegas, but some of the best barbecue I've ever had. Yeah, definitely it's worth a visit. Herbs and rye is a cool little spot, and anything downtown Las Vegas is is also cool. Like, if you want to cheap eat, like evil pie is cool. The Container Park has a lot of cool places to eat, you know, fairly inexpensive. Um, you know, if you said I could go on and on, but I know I'm looking at the time. I don't want to keep going over. But, yeah, so many great things in to do in Vegas. And then also, definitely great, Oh, I gotta say this, if you are a burger fan, the burger at Oscars in the plaza, the plaza Casino Hotel, it is a great burger, and you go during happy hour, so then that way you can get all of the happy hour specials and the burger, if you want to, but one of the best burgers, it is a Angus burger, so good and so

Kevin Thomas  
Isabelle. You want to go ahead and just give everybody your cell number so they can text you for guidance while in Vegas. Yes, 777...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
You will get so many texts, Isabelle, you can't do it. We're gonna stop you, like, don't do it.

Kevin Thomas  
But Isabelle wearing a shirt, saying, I know Vegas, let me help you.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Maybe Matt can create a pin for me.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, there it is. That's right.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, it's either going to be that or I died of dysentery, so be careful.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I love it.

Kevin Thomas  
Are we ready for some lightning round Brody? Yeah, let's do it all right, sweet or salty snack. No judgment, both. I gotta have both. That's a good answer.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Okay, one campus event you always look forward to each year.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Well, I'm at a new campus, so I'm learning about, you know, the events that are happening at utk, but I really did enjoy their their torch night. It was really amazing. And so I'm looking forward to that next year.

Kevin Thomas  
I would say this, and I know we're jumping in on the lightning round. Isabella is a great follow on LinkedIn because of the things she's posting about the work and the things that are going on at utk, and just some of those things end up being things that I think I've thought about. Like, Oh, how could I build that in? And what I'm doing here on my campus, or, you know, it's been those things, of, like, aspirational things, and the torch lighting ceremony you're talking about looked amazing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, you're great at it too. Sorry, Isabella, get going. Yeah. You enjoyed it.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah. It looked great. Even if your favorite non work app on your phone.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, the designer home. Oh, goodness, it's called, it's called Design Home, is what it's called. So you get to design all of these different rooms. There's always different room types, from like a living room to a patio, I mean, and it's gotten so fancy I started playing with it, like during the pandemic, and over the years, they have stepped up their game. Like, every year gets better and better, and so, yeah, definitely, that's my thing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
If it took our homes, if I could take a picture of our home and then it did design for me at my place, I would be very happy.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
It doesn't do that, but it allows me to use my creative brain to think about like, Okay, well, what I do with this and with that, with different play around, with different

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
styles, okay, Isabelle, what's a book that's significantly shaped your thinking.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Oh, fell and forward, by John Maxwell, and also totally different, but Sula, by Toni Morrison. It's not one of those books that's usually on someone's list, you know, for shaping your thinking, but it's definitely something when I was in college that was something that resonated with me.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I know that you're in Portland right now and you are enjoying some well earned time away. Portland's a big favorite city of yours. I we enjoyed it a couple years ago when we were there for annual conference exploring and get exploring and getting to know it. What are your travel bucket list locations besides Portland?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Tokyo. That is on my list. Tokyo, and I also want to go to Ghana. Those two places.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Okay, do you have a karaoke song?

Isabelle Rena Langham  
I don't have a favorite karaoke song because I have an entire list that's called karaoke church me please. And the reason why it's called that is like, it's like all of the songs that people like to sing at karaoke that remind you of someone belting it out in church, right? All of the good, course, all of the good harmonies, right? Like, you know, just like Kiss from a Rose, right? You gotta build that thing out.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Love that track. That's a great track. I don't think I could do it. I don't think I have that kind of range.

Kevin Thomas  
You do not have that type of range. Let's just be honest about it.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, I'm a I'm a legend in my own mind. Kevin, as it relates to karaoke, though I think I like it.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, I think you could have stopped that sentence at a legend in my own mind and then just not gone on beyond that. But who knows. How about a last question here before we start to wrap this thing up. You're you like to build a playlist you just talked about that a little bit. What's the last playlist you built? And what was the mood or occasion that you might have built that for

Isabelle Rena Langham  
the very last one that I built was so I had a friend that challenged me, who's actually going to be at the conference, but challenged me. They said that they knew more music than than I do. I don't believe them. And so we have an entire rubric, and there are 20 songs that we had to get through. And so I have a playlist of 20 songs where, and I call it the winner's circle, because I'm going to win.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes, love it.

Kevin Thomas  
Love it well. And here's the thing, too, just for our audience, there is an adventures in advising the pickup meeting playlist for the annual conference that's out there. And so that will be in the links that we have available for the show. But make sure you're checking it out as you're driving. And refining or traveling to Vegas in whatever way you're going to get there.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We need to rename that to the winner circle. 

Isabelle Rena Langham  
That's the best name for it.

Kevin Thomas  
That's right. Isabelle, you've been fantastic today. We've been so glad to have you.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Thank you so much for having me on here today. It's been really cool just to talk to you and catch up. Always enjoy talking to both of you. You're hilarious, and I'm just glad that my air pod, you know, has stayed in the entire time,

Kevin Thomas  
And so excited to see you here in little under a month.

Isabelle Rena Langham  
Yes. In a couple of weeks,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We're looking forward to it great having you on Isabella.

Kevin Thomas  
Thanks. Thanks, guys.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, I love me some Isabella time, she was awesome.

Kevin Thomas  
You know, one of the first answers she said really struck a chord with me, because she was talking about the journey, and we kind of started off with young Isabella say to that answer, but then, you know, really got into realizing that what we're doing, professionally and personally is a journey. And I think back to that in the power of goal setting, but not being so ingrained in the goals that you don't enjoy the journey. And I think that they you know that journey that we go on being able to breathe and say, well, this path may be interesting to explore. This may be a good career to look at this job may be something I wasn't thinking about because I was thinking about this goal. It just it left me thinking about how often we have conversations about goals and how often we should probably add into that, that it's okay, that the journey winds a bit.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, the other thing that, and this was kind of early on too, was just this idea that it's important for us to define what success means to us uniquely, right? I mean, with, without that kind of grounding, your actions and your motives, you can run into a lot of problems. And so I really appreciated her saying, you know, I had to, I had to take a step back and kind of really think, what does success for me look like, and being very intentional in that, because it really is bad if, if we're if we're not, if we're letting those external forces of what people think success should look like, and that's motivating our actions. I think we end up in bad spaces when that happens.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, yeah. She was fantastic. And again, so glad that we had her on All right, let's wrap this thing up, right? And and we're pivoting. Yeah, we had a top three for what we were going to end it with, and we're like, you know what? That doesn't make any sense. So we're going to move this to top three things you like to do at an annual conference or that are part of your tradition or your journey that you've had because you've been to every Nakada ever, because you're just that old, right? For how many you've been to?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, it's true. I've been to a lot. There's no doubt about that.

Kevin Thomas  
So do you want to start the top 3am? I starting the top three? You can start, yeah. So some of this is City dependent. And I'll say, I think for both of us, we'll say, one of the best parts is finding the great sessions that occur. I'm not going to put this on my top three, but there are always so many great sessions, and trying to pick those out, because that learning occurs. And I've been to conferences where the sessions are garbage and trash and not great, and I really struggle with that and not those aren't Nakata conferences. Usually they're not. NACADA has some really great sessions, and so check those out. But my top three things that I like to do that are built around an annual conference. I like to tour a venue of some sort, like, yeah, like, it's great. I will say I picked this up. Karen arcin Ball likes to when she's there, tour professional sports arena. And so sometimes, yeah, Diamondback stadium, I've done the Padre stadium. There's several that are there, but like that, that's always a nice thing to just step out and tack that on to the end of a day. Number two on my list, and probably number one in my heart, is connecting with connecting with my network. I am a big believer that when you go to a to a conference, and especially the Nakata conference, these are people you don't see often, and so go spend time with them. I'm always left completely flummoxed whenever people are like, well, we have our our campus dinner tonight. You can have dinner with them anytime, right? Like, go have dinner with people that you don't get to see often. Like, get out and about. Explore, do that. Yeah. And then the other thing I'd say, and I think you're a big influencer in this, because your Instagram used to be very food heavy. I know it's not anymore, but it used to be very food heavy. Explore a new restaurant, like, go to some place that you wouldn't typically go to get away from some of those things. Isabella was talking about good options when we're in Vegas. But, you know, I reflect back on Pittsburgh a year ago, and walking back from going to check out the Steelers stadium, and as I'm walking back, there was just this Greek restaurant that was there, and I went and had it, and I was the only person in this Greek restaurant, and it was fairly older gentleman that that brought me a Diet Coke on a platter and a Greek salad that had a banana in it. And then I get to talking to this guy, and he said, Actually, I used to make the Greek salad like that for the Kennedy family when I used to work on their boat. And it's like, right? Just taking a journey and doing something different, like go do that with a restaurant or something. But those are my three.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, you know, you know me and Kerry Kincanon now are kind of on this rampage to see shows when we're when we're at annual when we get together. Kerry Kincanon, dear friend of mine. We got to get him on the show, for sure, but he's a massive music fan, and so I'm really excited. We're going to go see Tears for Fears on Saturday, once we get back to when we get to NACADA in Vegas. I'm really excited about that. I cannot believe this, but he has never seen Tears for Fears, and I actually have, and I have no idea how that's even possible. That guy's been to so many shows, and I used to think I was a big concert goer, but he's killing it, but he's never seen tears for fear. So I'm excited about that. That's a goal. So look food. I mean, come on that donut tour, the pizza place in in Phoenix. Donut tour. Oh yeah, the pizza place in Phoenix that we went to that's done by that world famous guy, golly, the meal that I'm like, Just cool places to eat, is on the list. When Salt Lake City was kind of, to me, a real underrated annual conference. I think it was 2013 maybe, and we went to this place. I went to this place by myself two days in a row, called lambs. I think it's closed now, but it was this famous breakfast spot, super old and just amazing breakfast like, I think I had the chicken fried steak one day, I had the biscuits and gravy one day. So amazing. And then third thing, I mean, I've been to so many I present a lot. I really enjoy presenting, right and sharing and learning, and, you know, I try to do some new things. And so even if you're not presenting, I think your advice of getting into presentations and kind of learning and doing that stuff is really important. No question about it. There are great sessions. And I just hope everybody has a good time, like, find good food, be with good friends, kind of my philosophy, I guess, because, you know, I'm on that list of key figures, I just love the ones I'm with, right? Like, I think there's a there's always this risk of FOMO, and don't FOMO. Just love the ones you're with when you're there. That's, that's the way to make the most of a conference experience in my mind,

Kevin Thomas  
I love that you've now brought up that you're a key figure in NACADA as reality. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I sadi apparently I didn't say that I was you stopped that Kevin Thomas, you...

Kevin Thomas  
AI said, Brody's awesome. And so there we go. Hey, listen. So here we go, Tears for Fears, because everybody's gonna be like, Oh, I know some of their songs. And so let's change them into our world. Sometimes higher ed feels like a mad world. Oh, see what I did there? Mad Mad World. Everybody Wants to Rule the higher education. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And ometimes we're and sometimes we get frustrated, so we just have to shout And let it all out.

Kevin Thomas  
There it is. We've hit them all, but we need to wrap this thing up here.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Hey, all right, folks, that's it for this edition of the pickup meeting. And we hope your own meetings, whether they're formal or pickup style or as meaningful as and as fun as these have been. So until next time, gang do good, be nice. We'll see you on the flip side.