Ep. 37 - A "Just Us" Episode

This week, the rails were more of a suggestion than a destination.

Kevin celebrates his 46th birthday while Brody shares his philosophy that every birthday is worth celebrating. Along the way, the conversation veers into unexpected territory: the disappearance of neckties, the quest for the perfect joggers, movie theater etiquette (put the phone away!), and whether theaters are destined to become the drive-ins of the future.

Eventually, the duo finds their way back to higher education, exploring what professional development really means beyond annual conferences. From peer observations and book clubs to campus-based learning opportunities and the importance of creating time for growth, they discuss how leaders can cultivate meaningful development experiences—even when budgets are tight.

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

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
Be nice, you. And away we go. Welcome back to the pickup meeting. No minutes will be taken, but plenty will be wasted. I'm Kevin Thomas, and with me is Brody Broshears. But do you know, Brody, today's my birthday? I'm 4646 I know, God, only nine more years till I catch how old you are right now.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
It's all downhill from there, Kevin. I'm telling you, it doesn't get any better than 46.

Kevin Thomas  
I understand mathematically. I have been closer to 50 than 40 for quite some time, six months, whatever you want to say, timeframe. I get that, but there's a significance of turning 46 where you're like, son of a bitch, right? Like, I don't know, like you're just getting closer to 50, you know? Like, in, and as you get older, there's certain numbers that hit, and listen, for anybody that's 50, you're gonna say, oh, now he's making fun of the old people again. I am not making fun of the old people again, I am just saying that none of us look at and say, you know what, I can't wait to do, turn 50, get closer to 50, get old.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'll tell you what, I used to, I've always loved birthdays in the sense that every year you have a birthday is another year you're living. Oh, my birthday, I don't really like my birthday, I'm getting too old. I'm like, you're alive to celebrate every birthday,

Kevin Thomas  
that's right. And on a previous episode of the show, you said that I was getting you closer to 70, and so therefore, therefore, I was killing you.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, yeah, I hope to be alive in 2040 and retired happily.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I hope you're alive in 2048 too, and also retired. I don't think you're going to make it that much further before you say deuces and retire anyway. Like, I think as soon as you can humanly do it, you're going to do it.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I would love to do that. I think that is true.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I get that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Do you have a special birthday tradition, like, what are you going to be doing?

Kevin Thomas  
My son and I are going to go on a trip. Oh, actually, awesome. We leave on my birthday, and we're going to head to Memphis and do some museums, and maybe take in a game. I haven't even looked at the schedule, but there's some food places, and some he likes to go to thrift shops and gaming shops, and so we're going to hit one of those in Memphis as well. And then the day after that, we're going to do the next two or three days, I got to think of a calendar in Nashville, Tennessee, and spend some time in Nashville and do similar type of things, and do some museums, and just take in the sights, and drivable from Conway, Arkansas, and flying right now is kind of expensive, and so you know, just want to not that driving is a lot cheaper right now. Thanks for dollar gas prices,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
$5 gas prices. What are we talking about?

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, that's right, you. In Illinois, it is of an Illinois. That's terrible. Hey, it's 397 down here. Come on and visit

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
390 It was 399 in Evansville here recently too. But up here, man, we're getting killed.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, it's a lot. But no, so just spending time with him will be great. And I have one of these birthdays, that is either you love it or you hate it, and we all have birthdays that we would throw into this in some way, but my birthday always falls within three to five days, or exactly on Father's Day, and and so we'll also be together on Father's Day, which is nice to extend that that time frame,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
You're getting cheated, like they could double dip. Golly, that stinks.

Kevin Thomas  
I know it usually has meant two gifts, and so I'm always appreciative of that, and, and not that gifts are paramount, but it's.. it does feel like, especially when it falls right on that date, I always feel a little cheated out of that opportunity, and I always felt bad too, because it would fall on that date for my dad, and then it's my birthday, right? So it's his day and my birthday, it just.. it's.. it's a lot.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Two ties is what we're saying, you're going to get two ties instead of one.

Kevin Thomas  
When was the last time you bought a tie?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Dude, I.. I don't remember. I.. I don't.. wow, that's a great.. it's a long time.

Kevin Thomas  
I think the last time I bought a tie was probably at Kohl's, and it was probably because I saw something that said it was 70% off or 80% off, and so it was maybe a buck 50, right, and and so it's like okay, but other than that, I can't remember buying a tie in the last 10 years, no, that's probably not true, probably seven eight years,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think I had one of my admins at the University of Southern Indiana, she was amazing, Susie Schrader. She bought me a tie on boss's day one year, and it was wonderful, beautiful. And I still wear that tie, but I think that's the last tie I can remember getting.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I feel like for a lot of campuses that's gone away. I will wear some on board meeting days, but outside of that, I don't wear a lot of ties.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Geez, this wasn't in the script, but man, it's got me flummoxed. I was.. I don't think I've bought a tie in 15 years.

Kevin Thomas  
Well, you know, here's something. So recently I was asked to speak and provide the welcome at Arkansas Boys State, I don't know if you know the Boys State program, if you're familiar with it, Brody, but like in the summer of junior year, the American Legion in states throughout the country puts on an event where juniors, they're going to be seniors, men, young men, are invited to come and do mock government and

Speaker 2  
Aw.

Kevin Thomas  
I did different interactions, and I did voice as a

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, as a 17 year old after my junior year in Illinois. Matter of fact, I won a scholarship, an Oracle scholarship. I had to give a speech at 17 in front of the entire delegation, but I was doing this welcome for it, and I was thinking about this because I showed up and I was asked to do it, and they said, "Hey, come do the welcome, this and I'm like, okay. So I show up, and I'm in UCA gear, because I'm giving a welcome from UCA. I have I have black pants on, and a black, like polo-ish shirt that's got UCA logo and my name tag, and I don't know anything about the script. I'm just.. I was told to come do a five minute welcome, and I walk into this is going, I walk into the green room, and Congressman French Hill from Arkansas is in the green room, he's the keynote, and he's got his jacket on and his boots and all the things, and I'm like, all right, well, I'm not dressed for this moment.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I've made a mistake.

Kevin Thomas  
No one told me, so I'm owning the fact that at least I look UCA, but I'm sitting on stage and it's Lynn Cotton, who's the congressman, Tom or Senator Tom Cotton's father, Congressman French Hill, me and this American Legion like important person, and all of a sudden I'm looking at her room, I'm like, you know, I don't have a tie on, I don't have a jacket on, but no one else in this room does either, and I think 10 years ago that would have not been the case, the closest was the congressman having on a jacket, but you have these dignitaries in various forms of life, and I just think that that's such a culture change that's happened in our world, that you just don't see the tie. Yeah, this was not on our script, but here we are.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Do you remember we were talking about this, maybe a couple episodes ago? I've, when Covid hit, like, I spent my time looking for the perfect sweatpant, and that's what I spend I. I mean, I'm looking for joggers, like, what's the best jogger? I found something at Old Navy, a couple of this this past spring. I bought, like, three pairs of this jogger, because it's amazing, and hardly any money spent on it. But finding a good jogger is really important post-COVID time now.

Kevin Thomas  
So, when you go, let's say, okay, your jogger, right? Like, when you go to the movies,

Speaker 3  
oh,

Kevin Thomas  
Do you typically.. what do you wear to the movies? Do you have on a jogger to the movies, like you're out and about, or like.. like what I always struggle with this, that I know what professional Kevin looks like and what he wears, and some people might say professional Kevin's not too professional, but I know what I wear to work, I know what I wear when I'm at home and just going to sleep, but like there's these things that come up, like what do you wear to the movies? I went and saw the Mandalorian and Grogu movie, Baby Yoda, if you will. I'm not going to do the formal name, I don't know him that well, but Baby Yoda, and I had on a Disney shirt, because I had on one of the jerseys, or whatever, that on the back says "May the force be with you, and I thought, well, that's pretty themed, but where else am I going to wear that shirt? And so, yeah, like, what do you wear?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, I mean, I'm old, Kevin, right, 55 and my birthday is not until October.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, it's not my birthday today. It's Kevin Thomas's birthday today. Like, let's not take away from that.

Kevin Thomas  
That's right. This is my day. They were only going to talk about things that we weren't supposed to talk about. Keep going on that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We're off the rails. It's great. I love it.

Kevin Thomas  
So off the rails, folks. Like, listen, we don't do a lot of scripting, but there's nothing that we've talked about that we were supposed to be, except that it's my birthday,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
so air conditioning is always the thing, and it's always freezing in the movie theater, so

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
not bringing a blanket, and I usually wear sandals. I love going and feeling comfortable, like I'm watching a movie at the house, so a good sweatshirt, pair of shorts in the summer is probably what I'm going with, and then sandals. Sometimes my feet will get cold and I'm not willing to bring a blanket in, but I'm very comfortable. I was thinking about this, you know, on Saturdays, the farmers market, I walked to the farmers market and you were like, what do I wear, and I'm like, I look like I got out of bed, probably right, lots of color, mismatched shorts, long sleeve T-shirt, I pop a hat on, some sneakers, but I have a lot of color in my outfits, generally, and usually I don't look, you know, I'll wear those joggers that have pockets, I need zip pockets now, it feels like I don't like going out without zip pockets, or or I need to be wearing jeans or dress pants if I'm not going to have zip pockets. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Have you been to movies recently? I mentioned I hadn't. You mentioned Mandalorian, and we went to the movies this weekend with Catherine's sister, and she's not a big Star Wars person, or we just decided we were just going to eliminate that from the from the choices, and we went to Sheep Detectives, which is getting great reviews, and it was fantastic. I loved every second of it. So fun, so fun.

Kevin Thomas  
I'm going to see it. Matter of fact, I think I'm going to see it tonight, but I'm going to see it. I'm excited about it, but I told you at the beginning of the year I have a goal of like 30 movies this year.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
and I don't know that I'm on pace for 30 movies, but it's about to sneak up. Summer is a great time to go to the movies, because it's nasty, it's all the things, and so, but there are movies coming up, and I'm excited about Toy Story, that's coming up.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
And listen, you can't take the Disney out of me. I'm excited about Toy Story. Let's think of their movies, they're coming. Oh, live action Moana, I'm gonna go see it, right? Lin-Manuel doing music, live action Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. I'm gonna go see that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Pressure looks good to me. The Steven Spielberg movie that's coming out looks great, kind of the sci-fi movie. I'm looking forward to that. Maybe you know, Kevin, we were talking about this. My wife and I, we love going to the movies, but, man, it's dying. There was nobody in the movie theater when we went the other day.

Kevin Thomas  
He man is coming to the movies, and I'm mentioning that because there was a guy that was sitting in front of us at the movies, and if you're listening to our podcast, I'll be surprised. But there was a guy the other day, and the He-Man promo is on, and it gets to the part where he puts the sword up and says, you know, I have the power, right? And, like, he is doing that in the theater, and I'm like, oh, this guy's gonna be great. And then he spent bigger portions of the next two hours, while we're in the theater, turning on a cell phone, because whoever's talking to him on Facebook Messengers. Way more important than the movie that we're all paid to sit in. Oh, this, you're talking about movie experience. This is the thing that's killing it for me. Like, I get it, where it's like it's a different experience. People aren't going, but like no one will disconnect. You can put lounge chairs in theaters, you can do all the things.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
But like food, the beer, yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
All of it, and then you got people that just want to have their cell phone out because they can't get away for two hours.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Cat and I were talking. I think movie theaters are going to be like drive-in theaters in 20 years.

Kevin Thomas  
I like that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
They'll be there, won't be very many of them, and it's just going to be that. That's kind of where we've gotten. It's not a community experience anymore. People just want to watch at home.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, I see what you're saying. I, they're going to be extinct. I thought you were gonna go back to drive-ins.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
No, they're gonna go away. Like, I mean, I asked that question, you kind of ignored me, but maybe it's because it's your birthday, and I'll give you a little grace, because it is your birthday.

Kevin Thomas  
It's my birthday.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I haven't bought you anything yet. I got to get, I got to get that sorted.

Kevin Thomas  
I know I kind of ruined some things with that a few years ago for you and I, and I promise folks we're going to talk higher ed at some point, but I kind of ruined that at some point, because we've been friends for a long time, but we've never been like gift friends, like no things that we do, where it's it? I saw something, and it was like $3 and thought you would like it. What did I get you? Was it like a Dan Marino,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
thing, or Bob got a little

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
action figures, and I'll send you pins from time to

Kevin Thomas  
time, yeah, stuff like that, just random, and then we happened to be together on your birthday, and in Disney, and I saw a hat, and I was like, I think Brody would really like this for his birthday, and then I changed the momentum, it's like, oh, son of a biscuit, we really have to like do some things now, and I screwed it all up,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
it's that it's that black Nike hat that has just a small little Mickey, God, it's fantastic. I love it. You're welcome. Dang, such a good giver of gifts, Kevin. I got to get myself sorted for you. You do. Let's go step it up. It's my birthday. Well, let's talk about higher. We were talking about, you know, we were getting ready for the annual conference, and I'm helping chair the state conference, Illicata. We were talking about professional development, think about the summer, you know, and what do people do for professional development, and we've talked about this before, but I don't think we've ever really dug in, right? We think about professional growth in higher education, we automatically, I think, in the advising world, we think of the annual conference, right? That's what that's kind of the default, and we budget money to go, and people get really excited, but, man, professional development is a lot more than attending annual conferences. Yeah, and we wrote in our yet to be published article, we'll see if it gets accepted, but we did write one, me, you,

Kevin Thomas  
and Matt Markin on how taking the conference interaction and stretching it beyond the conference is an important thing,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yes,

Kevin Thomas  
and so this is our way of saying, hey, Nakata, accept that publication, it's true. Yeah, we're just, we're just asking politely, but you know, I think conferences are great for networking, conferences are great for experience, conferences are great for learning, but I don't know that people automatically embrace professional development beyond conferencing, and in the seats that we sit in, I think sometimes we tend to put that as an afterthought, and people are like, well, I'd like to develop here, and like, develop there, and, and I really want to get to a better place of encouraging, especially as budgets are getting tighter, and folks are concerned about money and time away from family, and all the things that are there that you focus on the ability to do things on your campus, and I will say I've been really fortunate here recently at The Citadel at University of Michigan at Virginia Tech to be a keynote for on-campus professional development opportunities that they've had, where they bring people in from the outside. Listen, I'm bringing you to our campus in July. I'm excited about that, but it's with purpose, and I think you get an opportunity to do things with greater purpose when you embrace professional development beyond conferencing to fit the needs of your team as a whole.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I think you know, in many instances, even annual conferences, the goal should be to what can I do to solve a local problem, or to deal with what can I learn that's going to help me in my work back at my campus, and sometimes the best. Way to deal with that is to kind of think about what kind of opportunities exist on my campus for development, which ways can I get involved. I know we have a lot of advising, is a relatively young profession now, right? A lot of our advisors are less than three years in the field, that's a pretty big portion of NCATA membership, and so not all of those folks get to go to annual conferences, so taking advantage of what an institution has to offer. I'm so impressed with Illinois State. We have LinkedIn Learning, we do a lot of.. we have in our advising community, we have a professional development training group, and I think taking advantage of those kinds of opportunities, and even, and even giving advisors a chance to share expertise out, to me is a really great way to think about professional development in the advising community.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, and I like the theming of things I'm thinking about for when you're coming to campus here soon, you know. I think that the constant that higher education is facing right now is a lot of negativity on value and purpose. Yeah, but then also a lot of balancing the difficulties of shrinking state support, shrinking federal support, and that's causing institutions to have to do things that haven't been the norm. You know, I know on our campus this year we're not going to have a cost of living adjustment, a COLA increase, and so I'm worried about general happiness of how folks are doing. So one of the reasons why you're coming to campus, and I'm sure there'll be other things that come from it, is to kind of talk about some of that meaning making and happiness and the work that that they do, and how happiness is not determined by the things like that, and that it is a bigger equation of things, and so when you're able to theme things in a certain way, I think that that allows for development to be done with purpose and not just by happenstance.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I mean, we, we really know what motivates folks. I mean, it's pretty clear, you know, mastery, autonomy, and purpose, that's what Dan Pink talks about in Drive, and I use that a lot in my, in some of my talks, and so, you know, we all want to get better at stuff, and we all want to be able to do the things that we really are good at doing, and we want to build, we want to do both of those things in the way that really allows us to meet the goals of our work, right, or of our association and their goals, and, and so to me, you know, thinking about professional development in that way can be really valuable. One example that I would use that I think is a great was a great development opportunity, and got really, I mean, my folks were so mad at me when I made them do that. It was, we did some peer observations of advising appointments, for example.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
and what a great opportunity to learn, and my folks initially were just like, I hate your guts, bro. Do this, how dare you? I know how to do this work, and I'm like, yes, I understand, but to grow we should see other ways to do it, and it was amazing once we, you know, decluttered that from, say, evaluations, and said, "Look, the goal is to learn to do this better. How can we do it? And once people had a chance to do that, it just was amazing. I've never thought about this approach, or I've never asked this question. Gosh, you're doing this thing really, really well, like talking about the general education program, or you asked this question that really led to some great conversation. I'm going to use that, like that's development, we don't think about it that way, but

Kevin Thomas  
it is. Yeah, and

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
so that doesn't cost anything, it just, it just is about a willingness to want to learn and get better at the work.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, and I think about the organic things that can happen too, and that goes outside of our role in embracing the work that our teams can do. I think about Claire Tober, and I don't think it was just her. I think there were a couple people in my advising staff that wanted to focus on mental health and well-being of our students, and so they did research, they did work to kind of say this is how we can do a better job as an advising team, them presenting that to their fellow colleagues. Yes, way more effective than me doing anything for

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
it,

Kevin Thomas  
way more effective. I think the advising team here has a book club, those interactions to on a meaningful topic, and just interacting is development that I can't manufacture, because people would say, "Why are you requiring me to meet or requiring me to read this book? They picked it out, they went through it, they worked through, through those, those, those work, through those words, and through that work, and really found meaning from what they were doing, and those are. Wonderful organic experiences. Yeah, I think even as supervisors we could ask good questions. What do you want to learn more about? What's a topic that you really have a lot of passion for that you could share out to other advisors? I know that when I go to annual conferences, one of the things that's frustrating to me, I'll ask people, you know who they are and what they do, and so many times folks will say, well, I'm just an advisor, and I'm like, nobody's just an advisor,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
you know, and there's so much expertise in that world that we can share at really low cost, and when we do that, I think people have a chance to develop on my campus. The other place where that happens is folks want to be involved in spaces outside of their direct areas, and I think trying to find ways to facilitate those opportunities is another way to be good stewards of professional development. And so I think in instances where that can happen, I've tried to promote that.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, did you feel like you do a good job of selling the importance of it? We talk about telling our story. I know that you have a new boss, and at this moment, do you feel like you do a good job, or you have to do a good job of conveying why that's important, or do you feel like professional development, whether to conferences or not, is valued.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think what I try to do is lead by example, but, but I think certainly engagement works best when you have the conditions that we've talked about, right? You know, people are able to recharge, people are people feel good about the work that they're doing, they understand that their work is important, and they have the tools to do the work well. To me, that's the start. Right, good engagement leads to better development. From my perspective, I do often, with my leaders, share articles. You know, I just shared an article today about the joy of learning, right? Have we forgotten about the joy of learning in higher education? And, and it kind of built on a discussion about what is the purpose of higher ed that we talked about in our retreat through some deliberative dialogs and it's just an add on but I share those articles all the time and I just think that it's really valuable to kind of say I'm reading these things I'm thinking about this stuff and I think good employees should be thinking about this stuff too

Kevin Thomas  
you mentioned the recharging part of that, because I think a lot of folks put professional development in that recharge category, and I would just say realize that it doesn't have to just be professional development that does. Sure, you know, for a lot of administrators, including me, I feel a recharge from going to a conference, like, for sure. I think that's part of it, but I would say sitting in opportunities that provide student interaction are probably a greater recharge than anything I do, because I don't get as much of that as I used to get, and I think about that for my director of Admissions, she started in as a recruiter, and now she's Director of Admissions. Yeah, and sometimes you can see the overwhelmed moments of paperwork and process and travel schedules and all the things that she does, but I can tell when she's gone into a school and she gets to go recruit a student again, because you can see the recharge. Doing something different than your norm can be that professional development, doing something different than your norm can be that growth, that recharge that you want as well. Yeah, I think that that's

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
100% true. You know, you were, you were saying, do I do, do we do a good job of that? I mean, I think most people would look at me and say I really want engaged folks, right? I think most people would say Brody works to try to do that. I mean, there are always some folks who might not say that. I mean, some people don't like me, Kevin Thomas. I guess maybe that's a surprise to you. Maybe it's not.

Kevin Thomas  
It's always a surprise to me, how could they not like you? You're so delightful, and it's not necessarily

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
about being liked, but if people are unwilling to kind of think about things in a way that I think are really important, which is our job matters, our work matters, right? When we look at the engagement data through Gallup, a lot of folks don't automatically think about their work that way, but if you're willing to think about the work that way, I think it's easier to provide those opportunities. If you're not, it's tougher, and that doesn't mean you give up. And I think some of this is even generational, like I have found here recently that that younger group coming in now, I think the why really matters, and you know you're never done explaining why professional development is important. You're never done explaining why it might be useful to know how admissions and financial aid interact with our space. It may require. You to explain why it might be useful to know about what's the content in the beginning major courses of the areas that I'm advising, all of those things matter, but we have to help folks kind of move along in some instances. At least on the generational side, I have found that folks more my age, those Gen Xers, now I think it's a little easier sell than it is with our younger crew, and that's on supervisors. We have to figure out a way to do it, and I'm learning still and trying to do my best, but I think asking good questions can really matter. Like, what are you hoping to learn? What's something that you really are fired up about? And then letting people kind of move along with that is really good,

Kevin Thomas  
and I think making it a priority of your experience.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes,

Kevin Thomas  
that's a priority of your leadership. I think that's all you can really ask for,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
which you have to be willing to give people the time to do it too. Like, that's the other piece. Advisory jobs are hard.

Kevin Thomas  
You're right,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
and we can say one thing, but if we don't give people the time to kind of really live in that development world, then then that's on

Kevin Thomas  
us, that's right, and it's on us to get to our top three, and for our top three, I'm going to Audible, am I the top three birthday gifts you're going to get me this year, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, we were talking professional development, and we've done this before, where we talked our favorite cities that we've been to for a conference, and

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yes,

Kevin Thomas  
and I remember, you know, reflecting back on some of my favorite, Nashville, San Antonio, Orlando, those are some favorites in my mind, but today it is our top three locations for a Nakata or any professional development conference that has not yet been a part of your professional experience? What would those three be? Brody brochures. Dang,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
well, I think I love the Northwest, and Portland was fantastic in 2022 one of my favorite spaces for sure.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
so I would say Seattle. I don't think we've had a conference in Seattle, an annual conference in Seattle.

Kevin Thomas  
I'd like to do that one. Yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I know we've done a region conference in Columbus, Ohio, but the good Midwesterner in me says let's get an annual to Columbus, because I really enjoyed my region conference there.

Kevin Thomas  
I did a conference in Columbus within the last year, and I will say Super Clean City, also home of Nationwide.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh my, I didn't..

Kevin Thomas  
I know all I could think was Peyton Manning and Brad Paisley commercials nonstop, because Nationwide is on your side, not a sponsor.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And then I think selfishly, like, I, I'm not out on the West Coast that much. I don't think we've done an annual in San Diego, that would be fun.

Kevin Thomas  
San Diego's such a great city,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
or something crazy like Alaska would be fun too.

Kevin Thomas  
You know,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I don't know what city I'd choose, Fairbanks, Juneau, like they're only like, yeah, I don't know that they have a space big enough to house us, but San Diego would be maybe the my third one. So, those are my three: San Diego, Seattle, Columbus. Let's go.

Kevin Thomas  
You know, there's always this argument of certain cities, and people either love or hate in a lot of ways, where for Nakata, they say Vegas and Orlando have to happen every, within every 10 years, because you get the biggest attendance of those, and I don't disagree with that, but I went to a NASA conference for financial aid in San Diego, and I'm gonna tell you, folks were showing up because it was San Diego. Yeah, it was a delight. So, you're not wrong on your list, that's a good one to have.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
And I didn't mention Canada, but, like, Vancouver would be awesome, Montreal would be awesome, both of those spaces would be fun. Maybe I want to edit my choice now. I've up to five.

Kevin Thomas  
Quebec, Edmonton. At this point, I'm just listing hockey towns in Canada, Toronto.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
There's been a region conference in Toronto. Great,

Kevin Thomas  
yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
great.

Kevin Thomas  
All right, so my three here we go. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this in, and I'm gonna ad lib a little bit. Boston is a city I've never been to, and I would just like there to be an annual conference. I know, so Boston is on my list,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
right?

Kevin Thomas  
I don't care what city, truthfully, don't care at all. I would like to go to Hawaii, and I think that an annual conference would do really well, or conference of any sort would do really well in Hawaii. I'm going to be Stephanie Craft Terry from Hawaii at this moment. Say the administrators institute that I'm no longer the chair of should be in Hawaii. How great I'm

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
in, as long as you keep me on as a faculty member. Let's go

Kevin Thomas  
right. And then I would say the last I had on my list was New York City, but I will also say conferences that don't have a smaller ability to have a smaller footprint, right, on things like if we were in New York City, be like being in Vegas, where you're in Vegas and everything else is in Vegas, and you don't see people, so I don't know that New York City is what is going to stand out there for me, so I'm going to say. You, I haven't done something in certain areas of Texas, right? Like, I've been to San Antonio, I've been to Dallas, but I've never been to Houston once. And so, let's go Houston for my third choice.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's awesome. I went to Houston to speak last fall, maybe 2024 It was awesome,

Kevin Thomas  
you're so famous.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I really enjoyed

Kevin Thomas  
it. Yeah, I think Houston would be a lot of fun. So, I, that's going to be on my list now. All right. Well, we did. We did pretty good today, I think. We did not crash and burn, because if we would have crashed and burned on my birthday, this would be the last pickup meeting.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, happy birthday to you, Kevin.

Kevin Thomas  
Thanks, man. I'm

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
glad you're a year older, and you made

Kevin Thomas  
it. I, that means I'm a year closer to being near you.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
for this moment in time, I'm only nine years away, and not 10.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I mean, you made math a thing the last Jess Suss episode, so now I, you got to get the math thing right. I don't think it's how it works. You can't get any closer,

Kevin Thomas  
you're probably right, and we're not going to get into math skills again, because it was, it was interesting.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, well, that's it for this edition of the pickup meeting. We hope all your meetings, whether it's formal or pickup style, are as fun and as meaningful as this one. Until then, gang, let's just do good and be nice. How about

Kevin Thomas  
it? I why people watch the end of our episodes and watch them all.