Ep. 26 - Rebecca Hapes, Texas A&M University

From March Madness hot takes and overrated things to FERPA, advising, and finding balance in higher ed life, this episode of The Pickup Meeting has a little bit of everything. Kevin and Brody welcome Dr. Rebecca Hapes, Associate Registrar at Texas A&M University, for a lively conversation about her journey from academic advising to the registrar’s office, the hidden complexity of higher education systems, and the messy art of doing meaningful work without losing yourself in the process. Along the way, they swap stories about burnout, purpose, progress, Aggie football, and yes, even top cereal rankings. It’s thoughtful, funny, and packed with wisdom for anyone working to support students while keeping their own humanity intact. 

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  0:10  
And away we go. Welcome back to The Pickup Meeting. Hey, in with our future or with our guests today, I feel like we should start this off with a big howdy.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  0:21  
Yeah, howdy. I say howdy a lot in southern Indiana, I did at least.

Kevin Thomas  0:26  
I think we're not doing it right, like, I think it's supposed to be like, how Yeah, okay, there we go.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  0:32  
That's it. That's a Hee Haw, howdy.

Kevin Thomas  0:34  
Is it? I don't know. Is that? What that is this, that's that's beyond me. That's before I was born. Tell me about the good old days.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  0:43  
Classic country music. My dad and mom listen to Hee Haw all the time. It didn't age very well. I got to be honest.

Kevin Thomas  0:50  
If you're new to The Pickup Meeting, I'm Kevin Thomas co host here of Brody Broshears. Our real function of this is that this is no agenda, no conference room, and no one checking under the table to look at their phone. Yeah, I'm not doing that right now. No, I'm not doing that today. I bet our guests might, but I'm not doing that today. So it's, it's March when we're recording. I think we'll be April, when we're getting there. And so you would say, well, we shouldn't be talking about March Madness. But here we are talking about March Madness, because we're going to make final four picks.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  1:24  
Man, yeah, we have to do it. Don't How do you feel about that? Well, I feel less confident than my Super Bowl picks, which were 100% accurate.

Kevin Thomas  1:33  
I feel like there's a lot of pressure for you, like you nailed the Super Bowl a month and a half before the Super Bowl happened. Got it right, like I got text messages and phone calls saying how terribly I did compared to Brody.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  1:48  
Yes. I mean, the Final Four picks could be really easy. You could just take all the number ones and hope for the best

Kevin Thomas  1:55  
you could Is that what you're doing today. I don't know. I don't even know who the number one seeds are

Michael "Brody" Broshears  2:01  
I do, but barely, like, Kevin, we didn't talk about this when we were talking about this the other day. And that is, I haven't done a pool really since I was the Faculty Athletics rep in 2009 like, I don't really play the brackets i i just kind of watch and go, Yeah, I would have picked that one, right? Cuz we weren't really supposed to gamble.

Kevin Thomas  2:21  
Which is funny, right? The NCAA was concerned about Brody brochures filling out a bracket, yes, but not so much about the illegal funding that was being it was happening under the table at that point. Yeah, it's hilarious. Bracket. Bad, millions. Good, yes. So do you have favorite moments from March? Like, listen, I know that Indiana is a football school, but do you have like, basketball moments that stand out to you?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  2:46  
Well, I mean, they beat Duke in 2002 and got to the finals, but they haven't really been a proper basketball school for quite a while. Most of my favorite moments in the 21st Century have been following my Northern Iowa Panthers, right? They've done a lot of really fun things. They made the tournament this year. They beat my red birds, and they're, they're playing Saint John's on Friday night. I'm very excited for Jake and and that squad. But when they beat Kansas, and I think it was 2010 and then they beat Texas in 2014 and then they gave up an 11 point lead to Texas, a and m in the last 44 seconds, which I think is the greatest collapse of all times. I almost cried that night that they lost that game. Golly. That was terrible, but those are some of my favorite moments, kind of following the Panthers. I'm really glad my Red Hawks made it. You know, Miami made it. I don't think they're going to make it to the Final Four.

Kevin Thomas  3:43  
No, that would be a shocking turn of events. Yes, I tend to agree with you. And I think this is maybe a hot take. I think the Thursday and Friday of March Madness is the best two days in sports that there is. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  4:02  
It's a great two days of sports. There's no question about that.

Kevin Thomas  4:06  
And in my remembrance of things, I remember going to Sparta High School in those days. And there are years that I would mysteriously get a cough or a fever, you know, and miss those two days so that I would be at home. But I also remember being in biology class and the teacher saying, Hey, we're gonna turn on the games today and watching it, and you're waiting for the break in. And this is before cell phone, so nobody knows what's happening, except for that little box that's at the top that tells you things. And so you bounce back and forth and watch the games like that was the best.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  4:40  
Bracket fever is the best. Yeah.

Kevin Thomas  4:43  
And I also, like, I tend to agree with you, in that the teams that I cheer for, and I do I cheer for, I'm a Kentucky fan. I will cheer for some of the bigger schools. But in general, like, I went to Murray State, I went to Western Kentucky, I've worked. To si UE. I worked at UCA like, those are the games, and those are the experiences that are great. And are they going to win a Final Four? Probably not, probably not. But is the journey fun? Absolutely, and for those small schools to to go and slay the giant at that moment and win a big game and be Cinderella, that's pretty great. Yeah.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  5:22  
So my final four, I'm going to do it fast, all right, Duke in Arizona. I think they're the two best teams in the country, and I think they get there. It pains me because I think Purdue is the two seed in that West. And then I'm going to take my only real surprise is I'm going to take Illinois to get to the Final Four. They're the three seed, and then I'm going to take...

Kevin Thomas  5:45  
Constrain your eyes to see the bracket.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  5:47  
Michigan, Arizona, Illinois.

Kevin Thomas  5:52  
Ours is not that different. And I have looked at the bracket. I am going with Duke, Florida, Michigan and Purdue, and I am taking Michigan and Duke to play each other, and Duke to win the whole thing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  6:06  
Yeah, I don't want Duke to win the whole thing, but...

Kevin Thomas  6:08  
I don't either. It really sounds terrible. Does not taste good. Zero of 10 do not recommend but I think Duke's gonna win the whole

Michael "Brody" Broshears  6:18  
thing. Yeah, I'll just take Arizona for fun.

Kevin Thomas  6:21  
Yeah, I there are some that could say that this conversation that we're having is overrated, and that really does take us to our next conversation, which is overrated.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  6:29  
Things, Kevin Thomas, I was Catherine, and I went to lunch the other day in Uptown Normal, and we got there, and there was a parade, and I looked at my wife, and I'm like, parades are the dumbest thing in the world. They are. So I do not at all. I mean, you just sit there and people drive past.

Kevin Thomas  6:55  
Now, sometimes they throw candy at you. It's always the crappy candy throw.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  7:02  
Throwing candy bars. It's usually like smarties and little dumb, dumbs like, come on, and kids are skinned knees chasing after. It's just it's so overrated. Kevin, so overrated. 

Kevin Thomas  7:18  
Part of your reason for is like the amount of work that takes it to go into this right? Like shutting down roads and and all these things. And so the first thing that I thought of in this process is, so do marathons and races, but are those overrated? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  7:34  
You shut your mouth. Kevin Thomas.

Kevin Thomas  7:36  
All you're doing, man is you are the parade vehicle, and there are people watching you run through the road and be miserable like you are the vehicle on the parade that you're like, Why the hell is that in there?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  7:52  
They're definitely saying that when I run past no one's cheering me on.

Kevin Thomas  7:56  
Kevin, yeah, Listen, I'm not against you. I don't think parades are great, and I'm also not running races unless somebody's chasing me in it. So I think we're on the same team here. What else is overrated?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  8:09  
I'm not a big fan of all star games. I think they're kind of silly.

Kevin Thomas  8:13  
Yeah, I don't understand how that became a thing. They don't think there's enough avenues now, right? Like whether that's the Olympics or World Cups or World Baseball classics. There's enough things that's like, we can see the greatest players in the world without having a yearly All Star game that they don't care about.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  8:32  
Yeah, and making it count didn't didn't really help things like baseball tried to do that. It didn't make me want to watch it more. It just made me angry, because the years that the Cardinals made it to the World Series, the National League always lost, and so they didn't get home field advantage. And in all those years, they always had the best record of the teams that were still left. And I always thought, well, this is great. So the 162 games that the teams played don't matter, but that singular game where people that aren't even on the team get to decide who gets home field advantage.

Kevin Thomas  9:03  
Yeah, I think we could go and move that one from things that are overrated to things that are stupid. Yes, yeah. So I have some thoughts here on overrated things. I'm curious of your your opinion of these one social media.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  9:17  
Oh my Kevin.

Kevin Thomas  9:19  
I know I'm fighting today. Let's roll. Wow. I it's just it's gotten to a point, and I'm not on it anymore. I'm on LinkedIn. That's it. I said farewell to Facebook and Instagram and all the things. But you scroll through and like every one thing is somebody's trip or vacation, and you're like, Oh, that's really great. That Rob's on vacation right now. Way to go, Rob. Cool for you. And then there's five things that piss off. And there's, like, probably one of those things that you're like, Is my phone listening to me news break. It is, it is, yeah, and so that's why I say social media.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  9:53  
It's a look. Social media is bad. You're a better person than I am, because I'm on. Social media, media all the time. And I told you the other day, like, I go to Twitter to doom scroll. It's like, the only thing that I go to Twitter for anymore, and it's terrible, like, I never feel good after I'm done doing that. 

Kevin Thomas  10:12  
I don't understand that, Brody, you're sitting at your house with your army of cats, and you're like, you know what? I'm pretty bored. Let's figure out a way to hate life more, like, what are we doing? It's maybe true. Yeah, all right, running is on my list of overrated things.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  10:31  
Oh, come on.

Kevin Thomas  10:33  
come on. Like no one's chasing you, calm down. There's no need to flex. You know, ice baths. I've not done this, but this is a thing, and I don't understand it. Like, why do you want your water cold? Why do you want to be in a bath with ice? That seems to be foolish.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  10:51  
They say, taking those cold showers. Have you ever done the cold shower thing, like for 30 seconds or for a minute?

Kevin Thomas  10:57  
I've done cold showers, not on purpose, and that was terrible. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  11:00  
It's supposed to wake you up and make you feel better. I don't. I don't know.

Kevin Thomas  11:06  
Coffee would be on my list. And I only say that because I don't understand it.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  11:11  
Coffee is delicious.

Kevin Thomas  11:13  
I don't understand the language either. Oh, here's a good shift. And I think you might agree with this one. I don't need the separate coffee language. Oh, okay. Like, can we just speak English or normal? Like, I just want to order a small this. Don't confuse me with your complicated words. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  11:34  
It seems like we're moving into pet peeves rather than overrated things, but you can think coffee's overrated.

Kevin Thomas  11:42  
Yeah, you're probably right. Last one is, I don't understand why everything needs to have an app. I find that to be overrated.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  11:50  
That is overrated.

Kevin Thomas  11:52  
My family has lined up on it right now. I don't need an app.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  11:55  
That's fair. I shouldn't say this, because Illinois State is famous for theirs, really, yes, and I actually went to it last year, and it was fantastic. But generally, I think, I think you're talking about circus are overrated.

Kevin Thomas  12:13  
Yeah, I thought you were talking about Illinois state's app.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  12:17  
No, no. Good. Claire, I had one last thing that we I needed to throw in there. Remember, I got to get the last word. Is that overrated me getting

Kevin Thomas  12:26  
But I was about to download the Illinois State app. I had to stop myself. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  12:32  
We have a lot of fun here, but it's, I think it's time to bring our guests on, don't you?

Kevin Thomas  12:35  
I think it's time to bring our guest on to it is our pleasure and honor to welcome Dr. Rebecca Hapes, the associate registrar at Texas A&M former advisor, co editor of major advising publications throughout the globe, national leader in advisor training and FERPA education. I would dare say, what else can we say that's really nice about Rebecca Hayes, let's, let's, let's get them all in there. Rebecca Hapes, welcome to the show.

Rebecca Hapes  13:03  
Thank you. Thank you. You're ready to embarrass me right off the bat.

Kevin Thomas  13:09  
how was our? How was our howdy?

Rebecca Hapes  13:11  
You're gonna Yee haw howdy? No. Howdy is a welcome and a crowd control, and neither of you did it correctly? Well, that's what I just did, howdy. Oh, like, you don't have to draw it out. It doesn't need five syllables. And yes, I know I just said the word draw in several syllables, but I mean, it's just Howdy, unless you're in front of a group presenting, and then you might get a little louder than that. I've been known to get a little a little louder than that. 

Kevin Thomas  13:48  
You have to give us credit, we at least tried. I don't think for any other guests that we've had on, we've tried to match the greeting to the person. 

Rebecca Hapes  13:57  
Well I appreciate that from both of y'all, especially when Brody talked about Aggies beating his team in basketball.

Kevin Thomas  14:05  
I wondered if you were going to pick that up. I did pick that up. It was a long and a bad night, and I was thinking, Rebecca Hapes is loving that night.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  14:15  
I heard something just the other day. Do you know the Indiana University is the 2025 national champions in football. Did you hear that? Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. I mean, did Texas A&M win the national championship?

Rebecca Hapes  14:27  
We're not, we're not going to go there. You know what's overrated? Preseason rankings. You're welcome. Mic dropright there.

Kevin Thomas  14:43  
That's right. We're all looking forward to Texas, A and M, being a top five team again next year, and not going any further than you know the playoff

Rebecca Hapes  14:50  
And maybe you know what the games are a blast, and the atmosphere cannot be beat at Kyle Field.

Kevin Thomas  14:57  
I believe you. I do. I think that's probably a special. Place it is. So listen, this is where it gets fun and hard, right? All the same time is that we're going to start asking these questions, and you never know what you're going to get with us.

Rebecca Hapes  15:10  
I never know what I'm going to get with either one of y'all.

Kevin Thomas  15:13  
That's true when we when we really look at your journey of getting here, you you've had some changes here, and actually you've had some changes very fairly recently. Yeah, we both know you from our involvement with Nakata and our time and the association, and you're still active in NACADA and doing things.

Rebecca Hapes  15:32  
Much more behind the scenes now, right?

Kevin Thomas  15:34  
Just a little bit different, but now you are in the registrar's office, and so it's like, you look at your path, like, of advising and now registrar, like, how did you get here and get drawn into this field to begin with? And that transformation to a registrar? I think a lot of people look at the registrar position and they say, not for me. You said, I'm going to raise my hand and go for this stuff.

Rebecca Hapes  15:59  
I said, Sign me up. So I'll give you the short version, right? So my higher education journey actually began when I was an undergrad. I just didn't realize it at the time, right? I was a resident advisor, and some of the best advisor training that I've ever had came when I was an undergraduate and when I was getting trained to be an RA because it is a phenomenal jumping off point with lots of different situations that you're put in. So the preparation for RA training is phenomenal. So I did an RA stint for a little while, and then I had a lot I was like the poster child for what you tell students not to do. So I had the four and five jobs, plus the full load, and I was the juggler, and I don't know that that has changed for me much since then.

Kevin Thomas  16:53  
That's what I was going to say. I there for folks that don't know. Our guest, if you think your life is busy, hold Rebecca Hayes water because she has for my coffee, right? We'll go coffee there, right? Like, no, no beer being on this analogy here, but like, like, hold your your coffee, because you are a busy person. So it started way back when, when you had these super healthy habits.

Rebecca Hapes  17:18  
It started way back when. So I was an RA, and then I worked for our Student Rec Center. I worked in the weight room, I worked as a fitness instructor. I worked as a personal trainer. I Wow. Was an official. I officiated sand volleyball, indoor volleyball, flag football. I mean, lots of different things. You learn lots of different skills doing that, including how to stick up for yourself and how to be confident with what you're doing, right? Um, so I did that for a little while, and then I fell backwards into a brand new office that A and M was opening up after I graduated with my masters, and it was under the Office of Admissions, and at the time it was admissions in the registrar's office, but it was the prospective student center, so it's basically a one stop shop for prospective students.

Kevin Thomas  18:15  
This is what's for them to be admitted, not to gain perspective, correct?

Rebecca Hapes  18:22  
So for those of you who know, you know I bleed A&M, so me like falling backwards into a job where my whole life was to talk to prospective students about how cool A&M was was like a job that was just tailor made for me. So I did that for three years, but I missed, well, I didn't know that I needed the relationships with the students, yeah. And so after about three years of doing that, lots of event planning and large scale things, my boss, at the time, actually said I saw this position, and I think you'd be really good for it, which, if you're ever in a leadership position, looking out for your team is really crucial, right? Like, that's what we should be doing as leaders, is making sure that they're preparing and launching into the things that are perfect for them. So at the time, I moved into an academic advising role in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Department of Entomology, small department in the world of Texas A&M, but the largest Entomology Department in the US. So it's like this awesome best of both worlds sort of situation. I did that for a really long time. I did that for 17 years. Toward the end of my stint there in academic advising, there was some restructuring in the college around advising, and so my role changed rather dramatically, and I ended up leading one of the consolidated units. And, you know. Half a dozen advisors and supporting like five academic departments. So that was that was a unique shift, and I had sort of done a lot of the things that I thought maybe this would be cool if I could do, and I decided I just was ready to try something different. I had graduated with my PhD not too long before that. So thank you. Thank you. If anyone's interested and hit me up and talk to me about what that process looks like, because juggling a full time job and kids and a husband and life while you're going back to school is challenging, so always happy to chat about that.

Kevin Thomas  20:39  
Wait, so you're saying you didn't set anything aside. You just decided to just add on to your plate. Is that what I hear you say?

Rebecca Hapes  20:44  
We've already discussed, okay? I had issues with boundaries and like taking on too much responsibility, and responsibility is one of my top five. If I think it's anywhere near my lane, I just grab it and decide that it's something that I need to handle which I'm working on. 

Rebecca Hapes  21:02  
We gotta deal with that Hapes.

Rebecca Hapes  21:04  
I understand that these, these are not great qualities. They're the flip side of your strength is also your weakness, right? So, so I had finished my PhD, and then this associate registrar position came along, and, I mean, obviously I've been working here forever, and so I knew people in the office, and I reached out to one of them and said, Talk to me about what this is. Tell me a little bit more, because it was specific to FERPA. I said, Tell me a little bit more about this position. And and so she did, and I said, you know, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring. Um, I've done what I've been doing for a long time. Another thing about me is I'm pretty loyal, right? I've spent my entire career at one institution, but I was also loyal to my department in the academic college that I was in. But some things had happened. The university was doing some shifting, the college was doing some shifting. And I said, you know, it's time for me to to try something else. And so that was, in and of itself, a pretty big step for me to throw my name in, in the hat, to be considered for something. But I did, and got snagged up, came over to this side of the world, where now Central Support Services, supporting all of the advising on campus that works with the students. So the scale is a little different, the scope is a great deal different, and so I still get to do my passion projects, which are training for me. I'd always done advisor training and event opportunities for academic advising on our campus in a volunteer role through our university advisors and counselors Association, and I served as a president of that and other titles associated with that, that organization. But I get to do this now as part of my as part of my job, because once I came in and then did FERPA, I got a list of things sort of handed to me, like we really want to do increased education across campus about FERPA. And I'm like, Oh, I got you because I know where the rubber meets the road, and if we make suggestions, I can I understand how those might be implemented in terms of the daily practice of the work of advising and other roles on campus.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  23:23  
It's really a fascinating shift apes. And one of the things I would say is, you know that advising background, I assume, has shaped that work. What? What do you see like thinking about the work that you did in advising? How is it? How has it helped you approach your work as an associate registrar?

Rebecca Hapes  23:41  
Well, comments that I'm that I've made previously, if someone happens to say, Well, don't they know this? My response is, why do we think they know it? And who do we think told them? Yeah. And so from you know, that adult learning perspective, the training perspective, if we expect someone to know something, we have to reverse engineer that and figure out, where would they have learned it, who's responsible for telling them, and if that's not in place, the system needs some tweaking. Yeah, not going to say it's broken, but the system needs some tweaking. So if we have expectations for what individuals are supposed to know and do, we've gotta make sure that the training is in place, that we're giving those expectations to that group of people so that they can do their job the way somebody else wants them to, and to the best of their ability. So that Brody, I've, I've, I've asked that question in a lot of in a lot of different meetings, like, well, if we expect them to know this, where are they getting it? Where do we think they're getting it? Yeah, and then I could say, oh, yes, it sometimes comes up here or no, that that's that's not actually what's happening in reality, that's not taking place.

Kevin Thomas  24:55  
So great. You know, Brody, we recently had a conversation where we talked about President. Presentation and angst within our presenting styles. And I wish that more people would get to what Rebecca just talked about is, you know, like, when you're doing presentations, you're doing training, that you're thinking more about the audience than you are filling the time, right? Like, and that's some of what you're talking about. Like, I think some people are like, I have to do a presentation for advising. Okay, what do I want to tell them about financial aid? No, no. Like, what does advising need to know about financial aid? It's a it's a simple flip. But like in general, I think we get general presentations instead of specific presentations, because, well, we have this one done already,

Rebecca Hapes  25:41  
that that's pretty key. So I've had the opportunity to sort of bring back a pretty large scale opportunity for training here on campus, professional development, really. So twice a year our office puts on we do everything Reggie branded. So it's Reggie 101 in the fall, and Reggie 102 in the spring. But it's, it's for the campus community and specifically for academic advisors. So what are the systems, software, platforms, processes that our office manages, and what do advisors need to know about it? What are the tricks, the tools of the trade. You know, what are the ins and outs? What are updates that have happened? And so it's really tailored to those audiences based on processes and systems that our office manages on behalf of the campus community. And so really taking that and my my team here does a phenomenal job of preparing that and really helping all the presenters come at it with, what do we want the advisors to know? Like, help us, help you. What do we want advisors to know so that we have minimize, we are minimizing downstream impacts that are problematic for students, because really it's it all comes back to we want the students to be successful, so what do we need to do to put the right people and training in place so that that's happening for them?

Kevin Thomas  27:08  
All right? So we started this podcast, and I'm going to do like Brody and I said, What do we want to do? And part of this was, we're both big fans of the podcast smart list, and so we're going to ask you a bunch of smart list questions that I'm kidding. We're not, but one of the things that happens on smart list is when they don't understand what somebody just said they asked him to explain. It a little slower, for Sean's sister Tracy, and so for Brody's imaginary friend Philip, I need to know why it's Reggie what I'm missing here.

Rebecca Hapes  27:40  
So registrar, registrar office, we just did to Reggie.

Kevin Thomas  27:46  
That's actually super creative, and more registrar's offices should do creative things.

Rebecca Hapes  27:51  
So we have a lot of Reggie stuff. So we have the office began a Reggie stars. So play on registrar and Reggie star. And so if folks do something outstanding, they can be rewarded with a point on the star. And if you get all five of the stars, because we have, they all mean something, it's all relates to our office mission. That's amazing. Then we do, you know, there's a big celebration if someone gets all five points of the stars and they have their name engraved on a star that goes up on our wall and and so we have a lot of office engagement, sort of activities that we really try to foster. And have a great we have a great working environment here in this office.

Kevin Thomas  28:42  
First of all, thank you for Brody's imaginary friend, Philip. He didn't know, but my goodness, like and you said we came up with Rebecca. This is a Rebecca Hapes, like gold.

Rebecca Hapes  28:53  
No, no. That was in place before I ever got into really, yeah,

Kevin Thomas  28:58  
The talent at A&M, yeah.

Rebecca Hapes  29:00  
That was in place I ever got in here. But it's important for us that the office folks and everybody who works in the office feels that they can contribute in some way outside of just what their role is. So we have a lot of different we call them extracurricular teams. And so we have a reg events team, which is just as it sounds, it's our event. So we do a lot of staff, staff engagement, staff celebration, which is stuff for fun. You know, there's a national day of just about anything and everything that you can think of. So we have chip and dip Day coming up next week, with an office sign up. People are going to bring in their favorite chip and dip, and we're gonna have an afternoon where we all eat. We have a lot of food related events.

Kevin Thomas  29:51  
I was just thinking that Brody is now going to apply for a job in the registrar's office. You said food at work, and he's on board. 

Rebecca Hapes  30:00  
We've done queso day. We had cookies for Saint Patrick's Day yesterday. I mean, you want to be in a place where you feel good coming to work, right?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  30:12  
It's accurate. There's, we've talked about that a lot, yeah, you know, Rebecca, I think about this a lot. Registrar, work is invisible a lot of times, right until something goes bad. What do you wish more advisors and Student Success folks understood about the role?

Rebecca Hapes  30:32  
So I thought I knew what the Office of the Registrar was involved in before I got over here. But there's a lot behind that curtain, yeah, that folks just really don't understand. And so I think there's staff frustration if and when they're told no, because they don't understand that there's some state mandate or some federal legislation involved in the why. And so what we've tried to do is bring forward, if we're saying a reason or giving you a decision, tying it to what the university rule, policy, system, regulations, state compliance guideline or federal legislation is behind what that rationale is it's not an arbitrary no because we don't want to do the work like it's a compliance piece to make sure that we as an institution stay out of trouble. And so I think, I think a lot of people don't understand that compliance component to a lot of the work that's done under the Office of the Registrar umbrella.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  31:40  
That makes perfect sense to me, and it matters a lot for us to be compliant and for us to be following the law, it does. I think we that's definitely not something we want to play around with. For sure, we don't,

Rebecca Hapes  31:55  
we don't want to be in the news for negative reasons.

Kevin Thomas  31:59  
No, no, that's right. We that's a good goal to have. 

Rebecca Hapes  32:03  
Yeah, we don't want to be in paper for bad things.

Kevin Thomas  32:08  
You have done a lot of writing and editing and research and different aspects in your career, and Brody and I would say, we have not. And wait, wait, we've done others involved. Do try to get others involved. You try to be very inclusively, right? I can't help but think Marsha Miller saying that we should all be writers when she came on the show you, because we all have that potential. We just don't necessarily know. Brody, Matt and I have recently done an article submission for A and T so stay off my case there. Rebecca Hayes, yeah, she's raising the roof. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  32:45  
Audience, I'm super pumped about that. That's awesome. And we each wrote an article for the academic advising quarterly.

Kevin Thomas  32:53  
That's right, we've got we've done two things this year. We're exhausted. I'm out two things, sign me up and I'm actually done. Sign me up for just being done. So like, when you think about getting into that work, what inspired you to get into that line of profession, right? Because it has been a part of your professional identity. And like, Were you trying to feel gap, fill gaps in the field, like what was, what was your purpose in that?

Rebecca Hapes  33:24  
So a lot of my involvement in NACADA and in the association, even at the region level, was to make my job easier and to try to contribute to making everybody else's job easier. And sometimes that means some insights into the students we're working with, or systems or processes. And so the very first AAT article I wrote, I wrote at a region conference, I think I attended, one of the the sessions about how to write, and it's like a light bulb went off. I'm like, oh, so I can talk about my experience and then relate it to advising. Oh, I was like, I got this. I can do this. Yeah. And while I was at that conference, I wrote I wrote it. I wrote it in like, 45 minutes. And I'm not recommending that you do that, because it was a lot of just a well, this is my experience. I can write about my experience. And so I did it in a way that didn't feel too overwhelming, because who can talk about me better than me, right? Possibly my husband. But I mean, I know I know me. I know my history, and I know why I did things and how they relate to the work that I'm doing, so I can write about that. And so I dipped my toes in in a way that was not intimidating, and then it just sort of snowballed from there.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  35:01  
That's great. 

Kevin Thomas  35:02  
That's good. And now, every time I'm at a session and people pull out the laptop and they're just typing away because they're either taking notes or doing whatever I'm gonna say, they're writing an article for AAT.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  35:14  
I was at a session, I did it at breakfast. That's even better. Yeah, so let's talk about training and development, because you've done a lot of work in that space, and I know you've mentioned what you've done with the red shirt, but let's talk about it from an advising perspective. Kevin and I have talked to a lot of guests here recently about the complexity of advising right in this moment, right? More, more complex situations. We've got added AI, you've got multiple systems. How do we better prepare advisors to navigate both the relational work and that increased, I don't want to say regulatory, but I guess it is regulatory complexity of the work.

Rebecca Hapes  36:04  
Well, that's a I mean, if we could answer that question, we'd have training and development solved for all of, all of the higher education. No pressure. Then no pressure.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  36:15  
I feel like my question was good. It's got Hapes kind of thinking, 

Kevin Thomas  36:21  
Listen, if the goal was to stop Rebecca on this one, you did it. But it's also it was a good question, because it is one of these, like this answer could solve a lot of problems for a lot of universities.

Rebecca Hapes  36:33  
So I think it's understanding the specific role, because each context, each advising context, each advising context is going to be different. So what's the population you're working with? What are the systems and needs you need to know about that specific population? Because we can't be everything to everyone. Yep, and I don't think that advising roles are set up in that manner, right? You might have what's the model you're working in? Sure, because that's going to inform what you how you work and what you need to know and how you interact with different folks. But I start with the foundation right like go back to the academic advisor, core competencies. Do advisors understand each of those three components, the way they interact, the way they show up in the work and and then you you add and layer things onto that, as nuances develop, as the context gets more complicated, I don't I think we're doing a disservice to advisors if we expect them to know everything all at once, because that, that's just not reality.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  37:39  
That's a that is a great point, right? Advising is a skill. We say it in the relational component and that it can be developed. And so I think in all three facets, whether it's conceptually information or through the relational there are layers that we're going to continue to add to our practice based on time in the role that that's a great point. Apes, I love it.

Kevin Thomas  38:00  
Thanks. Yeah, and, you know, I think it's one of these things that we often in higher education because we want to move faster than we typically get to, like, it's there's hesitation to go back to foundational aspects. And I've talked about this a lot, and like presentations and things and saying encouraging people to go back and look at the policies and procedures they have, because they were probably written in the 1960s and 70s and 80s, and our students no longer are those students. And it's the same thing with training and development programs. It's the same thing with the work that we do. Like at some point somebody set up with that foundation was go back and look, go back and see, because I think that there's some development that can be real, real strong there. Yeah, and

Rebecca Hapes  38:43  
I don't think it's bad to go back to basics at times, right? I mean, we're all we're all human, and we need to relate to each other. And what does that mean? Do you see me as a person? Do I see you as a person? Can we find some common ground and move forward? Yeah, absolutely. That's basic. I mean, it's okay to go back to the basics, but it's important.

Kevin Thomas  39:04  
Yeah, you have helped professionals throughout your career, right? You mentioned that it's one of these things that a good supervisor will do, X, Y and Z. And so what do you hope the people that you've helped away or you've helped in the field are taken away from that experience. And how have you really helped grow the professionals around you as a leader?

Rebecca Hapes  39:29  
Well, I'm not sure how I've helped others, but my goal, my, but no, my, my goal in doing anything is, are we better today than we were yesterday? That's great. And what do we need to know to be better tomorrow? And I mean, I know that seems very miniscule, and take it back to basics, but I mean imperfect progress is progress, and it's okay to move forward slowly, as long as you're trying to move forward. And so hope. Hopefully anybody who's worked with me has been encouraged by me and has feel felt stretched sometimes by me, in an effort for them to be a little better that day than they were the day before.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  40:15  
That's great perspective. You know, we've talked a little bit about your work with professional staff, but I want to talk about students for a second, right? Obviously, you've been focused on helping students navigate systems both in both roles, I would assume. Where do you think students struggle most today, and how has that changed over time?

Rebecca Hapes  40:38  
I think the instant nature of our culture has impacted student expectations, just in life, yeah, but also as it relates to their education, and so I think the struggle that I've seen is this expectation that hard work means they're not good at it or hard work may not mean meaningful because everything is so instant that if it takes more than an instant to get it, do they have the motivation to keep pushing? Two of my own are in college, and so I see this played out a little bit. And I we do the reminders of, you can do hard things, and just because it takes you a while doesn't mean you're not good at it, right? You can be good at something, but you're going to have to put the work in, right? And so, and I even see that with the one that I have in high school, there's, there's so much instantaneous and if I have to work for it, then that must mean I'm not good at it, not necessarily you don't have an innate talent at everything that you try. And so I try to model this. I am learning to play pickleball. That's awesome, but I had to be okay with being bad and something new. And I I'm not sure that folks are are good at being bad at something new.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  42:09  
Yeah, didn't Vonnegut say, didn't Vonnegut say, you don't even have to be good at it to enjoy it, right? You just have to do it and live in it.

Rebecca Hapes  42:18  
I mean, I'm not, good at pickleball, like I played it exactly one time because I missed the very first time of the lesson because I was sick. But like, even to sign up for it, I had to overcome this mental hurdle that I knew I was going to be bad at something, but I was going to do it anyway, because I I thought it would be fun and I thought it would be this cool thing, but it's getting over that mental hurdle of being okay with not being good at something.

Kevin Thomas  42:45  
Yeah, I love that. I do. Hey, so what keeps you motivated and energized with all the busyness that you have going on at Texas A&M at home with the family and all the activities they have going on like, what keeps you motivated energized after all these years in higher education, to keep doing what you're doing?

Rebecca Hapes  43:08  
This is where I'm supposed to be. So I know, I know that my purpose is to be in the space that I'm in, doing the work that I'm doing. And so if I go back to my own purpose, my why, my Why is to help those who I'm around be better at what it is that they're doing. And so that plays out, and that looks different depending on the context that I'm in, but I hope my family would say I've helped them be better. I hope my husband would say I've helped him be better, and I certainly hope that my colleagues would say the same thing.

Kevin Thomas  43:39  
So yeah, I love that a lot. And let me ask this follow up, because, like, there's been aspects of the last several years that have been a journey for you, and like you've had to say, Hold on, enough, or I need to reprioritize. And we have people that are listening right now that are go getters and going full foot on the gas and trying to do all they can do, like, Are there lessons you've learned in that process that you think are applicable to others that are maybe tired?

Rebecca Hapes  44:15  
Oh, I get tired. Yes. You don't have to do it all. And I'm actually going to, for those of you listening, I'm pulling a post it note from my monitor. I mentioned imperfect progress is progress, and my post it note that I have for myself said it doesn't have to be done in a day. Yeah. So imperfect progress means reminding yourself that you are on your own individual journey and that's going to change. Your priorities are going to change. Like I've had different priorities over my higher ed career, and once I really hit that phase of burnout or I said, Why am I doing this? Yes, because I did get there, and it was pretty it was pretty awful. I had to remind myself why I did the work in the first place, yup, make sure I was in the space that was supporting me while I was doing the work that I was doing, yup. And then I had to remember that every time I said yes to something I was saying no to something else. And I really had to think about what it was I was saying no to Yeah. So for me, I'm I'm almost always going to say yes to spending time with my family and being the loudest, most obnoxious supporter of my kids in whatever space they're in, but saying yes to that means I'm saying no to staying late at work, staying no to answering late night emails, because when I was in advising, I did not have appropriate boundaries between work and life, and I don't like to call it balance, because anyways, I won't get on my whole life. I won't get on my soapbox about that particular phrase. But if I was doing that in the evenings, that I wasn't spending time with them, I wasn't hearing them, I wasn't listening to them. And so for me, I had to prioritize. I'm going to be the best wife and mom that I know how to be. My job. Could replace me tomorrow, if they needed to, but no, they're not going to replace me at home like that. So I really had to reprioritize and and find what what worked. I'm not perfect. I say yes to way too many things. I have way too many things on my plate. That's again, that is just me, yeah.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  46:44  
But you know, hey, getting better progress isn't perfect, right? That's the one thing I just listened to. A great New Year. I listened, I listened to the New York Times daily podcast a lot. This is not a, I'm not schlepping for the times. But there was an interview a couple of weekends ago with this woman who writes about progress, and she talked in the interview about how progress just isn't perfect. It doesn't mean everything is solved. It doesn't mean that all of it is now perfect. Because we progress, there are still obstacles and things to face, even when progress happens. And I think that's a great perspective, and the idea that it's that doesn't need to be done in a day like that, that's a great reminder that you keep on your laptop. I just love that, right? It's just a good it's a good framework to kind of think about the work that has to get done, as well as the way that we have to live, and I think that's really important. And it sounds like you've gone through a lot to kind of sort that out, and sometimes it takes time to do it, but that's awesome.

Rebecca Hapes  47:51  
Well, and sometimes it's a frame of reference and just reframing the events that are taking place, right? I don't, I don't get to go to I mean, I don't have to go to work. I get to go to work. Sure, I get to do the work that I'm doing. And it's just sometimes reframing can help positives.

Kevin Thomas  48:11  
That's right, you got to find those positives, all right. So this is a little light and fun. What? What's your this should be a FERPA violation, but isn't hot take.

Rebecca Hapes  48:26  
This should be a FERPA violation, but isn't.

Kevin Thomas  48:28  
Yeah, I know right, like You're welcome. Great question by Kevin, all right, or you could go with this. What is, oh, this is dangerous, too. What is the strangest FERPA related question you've been asked in your role?

Rebecca Hapes  48:44  
Well, now my brain just went completely blank.

Kevin Thomas  48:47  
We will just, we'll eliminate this part.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  48:52  
I think it's good to I can't think of a strange FERPA related question either.

Kevin Thomas  48:57  
You know, I used to do faculty led events, some of the things that they would say, Why do this right now? And I'm like, You need to stop doing that, right? And so you get some of those things, yeah.

Rebecca Hapes  49:08  
So, you know, sharing the the class photos and talking about the students in the class on social media without prior written consent. And so, yeah, I don't know that I've got, I've got some, some oddball ones, but I don't know that I have any that I can like, think of.

Kevin Thomas  49:33  
That you can legally tell us see what I did there. I think it's time for the lightning round, Brody.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  49:46  
I want to start first. What's a professional development book everyone should read?

Rebecca Hapes  49:52  
I mean, advisor, training and development?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  49:55  
Oh, that's good one.

Rebecca Hapes  49:57  
I had to right? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  50:00  
Had to available on the NACADA website.

Kevin Thomas  50:04  
One word that describes great advising,

Rebecca Hapes  50:09  
Connection/

Michael "Brody" Broshears  50:12  
What's a policy that you'd eliminate tomorrow?

Rebecca Hapes  50:17  
Staff facing or student facing? Limitations on alternative work locations like do the work, where you can do the work.

Kevin Thomas  50:36  
Do you have a hidden talent outside of work?

Rebecca Hapes  50:41  
Hidden talent, yeah, I mean, I run, but I'm no Brody, like he can run twice as fast as anything I could do. Hidden talent, my one of my children say I can sing. I don't. I don't agree with them, but I do enjoy singing

Kevin Thomas  51:01  
It doesn't matter who quotes it, as long as they're singing, you take the win. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  51:10  
How do you recharge after a long week?

Rebecca Hapes  51:13  
Play with the dog. Hang out with my fam. Go for a walk. Enjoy nature, get some sunlight.

Kevin Thomas  51:23  
I like it. And here's, you know, in this day and age, and we're sitting here doing this remotely, FERPA training, is it better in person or online? In person, I would agree it's probably better online. I think I'm just going to multitask. That's true.

Rebecca Hapes  51:39  
A lot of people do multi task with the online things. That's not saying that there's not value in it, but in person, I've got a lot of fun activities that I have folks do. That's right.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  51:50  
Can I ask one more question? Do you have a favorite Aggie football moment?

Rebecca Hapes  51:56  
Ooh, probably the seven overtime LSU game. I mean that was, that was really an experience. I can get pretty emotional talking about, you know, the bonfire game with tu and and stuff like that, but, but that seven overtime game that that was pretty fun.

Kevin Thomas  52:16  
That's awesome. Hey, you made it. It's the end. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for talking about all the things that you do. If there's a takeaway that I have, and I think I knew this already, Texas, A and M, your campus, your office and your family are very fortunate to have you. So we're so thankful for you to be on the show with us today. 

Kevin Thomas  52:42  
How wonderful.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  52:44  
Just amazing.

Kevin Thomas  52:47  
Look at you picking new words to describe our show.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  52:50  
I tried my best. Yeah, I could have said fantastic, but I didn't.

Kevin Thomas  52:56  
Yeah, there's, there's a lot that's gained in every time I connect with Rebecca, and you know, like knowing parts of her journey, you know she talks about and I couldn't help but think about you in a way that you you know, when you were at USI and making a decision to do something different, there was a lot of loyalty that was tough in that conversation. And she mentioned that as far as making a change, and that's not the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you got to do things that are needed in life and and are not necessarily where you thought you'd be doing. And I think there's something to really learn from that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  53:33  
Yeah, I really appreciated the vulnerability of kind of talking about right, that balance between life and work, and really coming to grips with those things that matter the most, and trying to reprioritize based on that analysis. Because I think that that's something that all administrators should be doing. I don't think we're always doing it. I don't think we're always doing it well, and so to speak to that and and really think about this idea that we're all replaceable at work, but where we're not replaceable is the place where we should be putting a lot of our energy and a lot of our time, and finding ways to to walk that tightrope that are productive in both spaces. Is hard and it sounds like she's really sorted it out.

Kevin Thomas  54:25  
That's awesome. It is awesome. You know what? She didn't talk about, what our top three list today, which is the top three cereals.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  54:34  
It's so great. I am so glad we're talking about this. Kevin, I mean, this is the really important stuff, the hard hitting Higher Ed talk that we got to get to today, right?

Kevin Thomas  54:47  
Also where we'll get the most feedback from is like cereal. This is what you said. Is the best. You're wrong. Here are the other ones.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  54:55  
Yes, yeah. And if you have comments about that, you could send us an email at the pickup meeting. At gmail.com

Kevin Thomas  55:01  
right, that's right. We'd be glad to hear from you and tell you why your cereals are not a top three.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  55:07  
What are your top three? Kevin, yeah, this.

Kevin Thomas  55:09  
So this is a little harder for me, because I don't do a lot of cereal anymore, but the ones that came to my mind pretty quickly, and to me, the top notch here is Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Sign me up and I will eat that, and I will also feel like garbage in 45 minutes after it is a lot of sugar. You're welcome, body for hating you. I, you know, in my mind, like I really do, like some simple parts of cereal too. So like the Pops cereal, you know, like the corn pop cereal, yeah, like that, or just Honey Nut Cheerios are pretty great, right? Like, so that would be, like, my number two. And then I am not a big milk person, but I like some Frosted Flakes with a little bit of milk. Oh, yeah, don't, don't, like, smother that, just a little bit.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  55:56  
So, Tony the Tiger.

Kevin Thomas  55:59  
That's right, you're great. Now tell me your list.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  56:03  
I my favorite all time cereal is peanut butter, Captain Crunch. It's not even close. I love it so much. But in my adult life, there's two cereals I regularly buy, and so I guess I have to say they're my favorites. But I love the spoon size frosted Mini Wheats. And I love, I love the like the crackling Raisin Bran, like the crunchy, the raisin bran crunch. Both of those are great. So those are my three. They have to be my three.

Kevin Thomas  56:35  
And some of those are supposed to be healthy. The Raisin Bran crunch.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  56:38  
It's not healthy. None of it's healthy. So much sugar in all of cereals.

Kevin Thomas  56:43  
But you have your top one that I'd never heard of. So there it is.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  56:47  
And I think Cinnamon Toast Crunch is just okay.

Kevin Thomas  56:51  
Well, it's okay to be wrong, Brody, but even when you're wrong, you can send us off from this show.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  56:57  
Yeah. So that does it for this episode of the pickup meeting. And we hope your meetings, whether they're formal or just fun like this one, are as happy and as go lucky as we as we have in this meeting today. And so until the next episode, let's just do good and be nice. How about that? Be nice.