Ep. 39 - A "Just Us" Episode

Brody Broshears and Kevin Thomas are back with another lively pickup meeting, diving into World Cup excitement, summer in higher education, and why soccer has one of the most confusing rules in sports. They also tackle the future of developmental education, explore how co-requisite support is transforming student success, and wrap up with a spirited debate over the worst fast-food chains—guaranteed to spark opinions and maybe even a little outrage.

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

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ready? Take two.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And away we go. Welcome to the pickup meeting. Go ahead and turn off your camera. No one needs to see you rolling your eyes for the next half half hour. I'm Kevin Thomas, and with me is the guy whose LinkedIn headline says thought leader, but whose actual daily workflow remains a complete mystery. It's Brody Brochier's. It isn't just us episode, Brody.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, that that didn't seem very fair. It's supposed to be funny, not disparaging. Come on, man. But you laughed.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

We're recording today. It's uh June the 15th, and we're recording on a Monday morning, which is you never know what's gonna come from us on that. And uh and so we might be a little off our game this morning. We actually had to do a second take already on the start of the show because I was not feeling it apparently. Yeah, that wasn't me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

And I produced today. I clicked the right buttons, I did okay so far. You've done excellent so far. It's all been me messing things up. I can be taught, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

That's great. Speaking of messing things up, let's talk soccer, the World Cup in the US, because we generally do mess things up.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, we did. I mean, so full disclosure, right? We're kind of in the early stages of the World Cup when we're recording today. Kevin and I made some predictions before we recorded so that when this airs in July, we didn't change our picks. But the US looked great on Friday.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Wow, you were really happy because it was the me, you, and Matt thread. Yes, if Matt was recording the match to watch later on, you were spoiling it. But I don't know if that was the case or not. Does Matt even like soccer? I don't I don't know that. I don't know. Sometimes in our thread, I'm like, I don't know if Matt really likes this, but he's along for the ride. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

But the US, I mean, I I think the way that they played today gives folks a lot of hope that, or on Friday gives folks a lot of hope that they could advance deep into the tournament.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And and the irony here is that we're recording on June 15, and it this airs on July 1. A lot could change in the next 15 days. Hopefully for the good, but a lot could change.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah. People are pretty excited about the World Cup. The crowds have been okay despite some of the controversy from FIFA and uh price gouging and the advertising breaks during the middle of the matches, which a lot of folks have opinions about. And but it's it's it's soccer, man. It's super fun. Kat and I watched all weekend. We we watched the extended highlights of any games we missed. We watched a couple of games. It's been amazing. Have you watched any games, Kevin?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

So I watched the first half of the uh USA game. Okay, and after that, I was like, this game's over because what was it at that point? Three 3-0, 3-0, yeah, and uh and I was like, okay, well, this one's done. I'm gonna go ahead and flip to something else. And then I watched the last 10 or 15 minutes of Brazil and Morocco, maybe. Yeah, yeah. And that was intense, it was and good, and and maybe a little bit here and there of others, but I will say this is not my sport, per se. This is more of a you thing, and and so I'm curious before we get to these bold predictions that you've done fairly well in. Uh, and when we've done predictions. Um, like you you grew up with soccer, you love soccer, you played soccer, you coached soccer, you've done the things. I've done all the things, soccer guy, soccer guy for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Soccer family, yeah, yeah. My wife was a Division I women's soccer coach at one point in time, and my kids both played soccer all the way through most of their uh grade school, high school. Um, my youngest daughter played a year of college soccer as well, so yeah, we we love it in our family. And and look, the World Cup is exciting. I was thinking about this. The last time the World Cup was in the United States was in '94. Kat and I were actually able to get to a game. We watched the game, I think it was the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit. We saw Russia play Sweden, and it was pretty controversial at that time because those games were inside and they had to have natural grass, and the grass was doing okay by the second game, but we just missed the first game of that turn of that location, which was the U.S. Switzerland game, and Eric Winalda, no one cares about this. He scored this great goal and they tied 1-1. But so we saw the second game indoors with the natural turf, it was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I've never been to a soccer game. What that's true, never Braden and I tried to go several years ago when we were in Kansas City. We had tickets to a sporting KC match. Yeah, this massive storm rolled through, and we were at the stadium, and you intro stuff had started, and all the things, and it was about to start, and then that was it, and it got rained out, and it was over. And you know, didn't go back and got a refund on the tickets or sold the tickets, I don't remember which, and and just never never been.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

We need to remedy that. I know you're a massive fan of Wrexham. Maybe there's a bucket list item there. We could get to a Rexum match somehow.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I I I lived through soccer this weekend by starting the first episode of Welcome to Rexham season five last night. Oh, well, good for you. Yeah, that was great. That was some healthy emotion in that one. I was telling somebody that I they said, what's that show about? And I said they'd like to say it's about soccer, but it's really about hope and belief.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yes, it is, it's about community, right? And supporting communities and building communities. It is really a great show. Welcome to Wrexham. If you haven't seen it five seasons, you can dig in.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

So the extent of my soccer knowledge is because from age five until probably 10 or 11, um, Braden played soccer, and and you know, so that's the bumblebee soccer moves, right? Where the little kids just chasing the ball around, and eventually somebody comes out and pretends that it goes in a goal, but there's no problem. Um, but he did some indoor soccer, he did some school soccer, you know, he scored some goals, he had some fun. Um, I would not say that he's a blazing speed on on the field, and so it's like uh, you know, like he wasn't gonna score a ton of goals, but he played his role and did some great things, but uh that's the extent of it. Um, and uh that was plenty.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah. Do you understand offsides? I mean, Ted Lasso doesn't even understand offsides.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I I do not understand offsides, and I understand it even less when like on Friday the first or the second US goal was taken back because it was offsides, and I was like, I don't see it. I I still don't understand it and don't see it. And they're like, Look how obvious it is, and I'm like, uh-huh, I'm gonna turn Dune on. You know, like I don't know what you want from me, but like like I did not understand it.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

So you don't understand offsides in hockey then either? Oh no, that I get. You're terrible. There's an actual blue line in hockey. Oh, in soccer, there's like imaginary lines. No, it's not, it's it's it's the second to last defender. That's the line. Come on. That person moves, the blue line in hockey doesn't move. Well, it doesn't make it any harder to understand, my friend. Come on, you can do hard things, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

So, in pure sports fashion, if we're picking a champion of the eventual ending of this, which happens, you know, in August, maybe I don't know, late July, mid-July, yeah. Yeah, um, you seem to have an educated notion of who could win, and I'm just going to pick a country.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah. I mean, I think the European countries are really strong right now. France and Spain both are pretty amazing. But I do think, you know, my dark horse isn't. I mean, I think the U.S. is gonna really be good. I I told you that I thought I had a good feeling about this roster and their coach and their style of play, and I think it fits really nicely with tournament play. So I'm I'm gonna take, you know, teams that I think are gonna go deep. I'm picking France as my winner, but but I think you're gonna see Spain go far. I think the U.S. is gonna go further than they've ever gone. And my dark horse is gonna be Mexico. I'm not sure Mexico's all that good, but you know, where we're playing matters, and having fans behind you really matters, I think, in these environments. So that's what I'm doing. Couple, a couple of uh uh, a couple of CONCACAF teams and a couple of European powerhouses. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

What are you doing? It's like you're speaking a foreign language as you tell this story. I I wrote this down, I'm putting it up for our visual audience. I wrote this down on Friday that World Cup predictions, Brody's taking France, and I'm taking Mexico, and nothing has changed since then that's going to make me choose differently. I'm going with Mexico. Okay. Although, what is it? There, I gotta find this and look it up. I'll send it to you. This will be uh off this, but I guess the Simpsons occasionally predict this correctly. Yeah, who did they take? I think they did they do Portugal? No, they didn't. It was uh I don't know, I'm gonna have to look it up now. But yeah, the Simpsons is generally right on this, so we'll see. That's crazy, yeah. But as you're listening to this audience, it's July. And if you're working in higher education, you're thinking, really? Already? Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

It's kind of hard to believe how fast the summer goes. Yeah, you you you want to plan out, you want to get some things done, but uh the back to school season is creeping up close for sure. Are you getting things done that you want to get done, Kevin?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Not as much. I would say just like I feel like I'm just treading water and then occasionally getting a little swim in just because it feels like a lot of a lot of maintenance right now. The thing that I think is interesting that with July as we've come to this part of the year is I used to work in advising and retention student success work. And I would say that the bulk of that work happens in May and June, and then July is a little bit of a breathing period, and and it's not like a massive, like boring time frame. You still have stuff going on, but it's just a little bit of a breathing period. But when you add enrollment and or admissions and financial aid work to it, like that's a different ball game. Apps will open on August 1st. There's apps that are open now, you know, being on this side of it with a uh incoming senior high school student, um, Braden, you know, getting stuff from colleges already. Like it's it's here, and and all of a sudden it's a sprint to to August, and then there's summer commencement, and you know, it's just like it the time frame has hit, and and so it's it's go time on on preparation and and final things. And so I don't think I've got as much done as I want to get done, but I feel pretty good about where we're at.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, I think the same. You make a big list, and then you hope you dig into chunks of it. I think we've been okay. We're hosting uh the state advising conference here in September. Where you're hosting it where? In in in at ISU. You settle down. You just did that on purpose. I had to say it. I didn't do it on purpose, you're right. I mean, I don't feel like that was an inappropriate reference.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

No, no, it wasn't. It was just listen, we're playing the game, we're playing the game.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Oh, you're the worst. And so, you know, that's added some work uh here for me, but good work, right? Healthy work. It's great for our campus to be able to host this event. Uh it's great to have uh folks involved in this, right? A chance to kind of highlight advising even on our campus, uh, to to folks around campus. I I think uh I feel really good about that, but it does dig into some of the other time that you're gonna you you you want to do for planning and those kinds of things for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, it's it's a it's a nice thing to have. Uh and are you speaking at this?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Uh I might present, but I'm not gonna speak. I think we I mean, I don't want to let cats cats out of the bag, but I I believe we've got Jenny Bloom coming, which I'm really excited about. She's an ISU alum, and she just did a session in the UK uh called the Power of Questions, and I'm really excited about that. If if that's what she ends up doing, I'm gonna be pretty happy about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, that's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Previous guest, Jenny Bloom. Check out this guest, Jenny Bloom, and all-around amazing person, too.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

That's right. Well, let's transition a bit into a topic that you and I have been ranting about for quite some time. This uh, this will come up in a future episode because somehow we're recording an episode for that will be July 1st, but we had a conversation later on with Christy Fireball that uh I think folks are gonna like because we asked her about developmental education, and that is a look at developmental education. And for listeners, that could be remedial courses, transitional coursework, whatever your institution calls it. Um, I think a lot of people view it as higher edge bridge to nowhere, but is that fair? And so I thought, you know, today we could have an honest, brief conversation that might lead to some future conversations about what works, what doesn't, and and where things are are headed here in the future. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah, I've overseen developmental math uh pretty much since 2007 at the institution where I was previous and now here at ISU. And I'll tell you, and I've seen it, I've seen it in a I've seen it in a lot of different forms. My one takeaway from my previous institution was if you if you placed into developmental math, you were a retention risk. About half of those students made it through year one at the four-year institution. I don't know what that data looks like. I'm not as confident in what that data looks like here. Uh, but since I arrived here, our goal has been to really align the development, the two developmental math courses that we offer to the next general education course in those sequences and to make sure it's only a one-course sequence. I I don't know that there's any, there's no silver bullet here, I guess is what I would say. But my initial take tends to be our pathways, if we do have developmental math, need to be short and direct. And I'm not certain that that's the best path. I think co-requisites with support uh with the general education math courses are a better option. That that's my initial take, Kevin. There's lots of research I think that would support that. I think in my personal experience, that's always been my goal is to reduce the reliance on developmental math and get students to general education math and major coursework math more quickly. This is uh, do you just have math, right? Yeah, in my in this institution, I just at this institution I just have math.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, it so every institution I've been at, and and I think some of this is the types of institutions that we've been to. Uh we're we've been typically been at um regional comprehensive institutions where developmental courses are a part of this culture. And and and I will say um the work that that I had at Western Kentucky University um was uh supporting students that were in developmental courses. So if you placed into two developmental courses, you were part of my retention programs uh there on campus. And and so a lot of experience with that, like some of my dissertation was about this topic on what works and what doesn't work and supporting students in this process. And uh and some of that led to the work that I did at SIUE, where I did oversee uh developmental education and phased it out completely. And so that was math reading English courses. And by the time I had left and was coming to UCA, we had completely phased it out and built it into the co-requisite style. Now I will say this is a because people are gonna look at it and say, well, let's go look at what that institution did. Um, then they changed their admission standards and they did some things and they brought it back and they said back developmental education, and I don't think it's working. And and for folks that don't have a full understanding of this, um, nationally, about 40% of students that place into remedial courses drop out before ever reaching the college level course that they need to take. And historically, only about one in 10 earn an associates within three years. Uh, and so you know, it's one of those things where we're spending a lot of money. 1.7 million students uh begin taking remedial course each year within states, and students spend more than 3 billion annually to take them, yet the outcomes are not great. Um, they're they're they're a real struggle.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, you know, uh there have been a couple articles here recently about California, and I've read a lot about that, their model, and essentially they eradicated uh even in some instances something like pre-calculus, credit-bearing math for STEM majors, and that's got a lot of folks kind of in an uproar. And I'm not I'm not sure I'm in support of eliminating coursework where you actually earn credit, um, because I think sometimes students do need more preparation. But even with those changes in California, the success rate in calculus did improve when they made some of those changes. Now, look, it can't just be about success rates. There does have to be a cost piece to it from an administrative perspective, there has to be an experience piece to it from a student perspective. So I think everybody has to get on board, but I'm not sure that the answer is to go back to remedial education as the as the first step. I mean, I do think that co-requisite model is a model that CCA complete college America has really advocated for. I think there's lots of good data out there that suggests this is a better model. I think if you were to ask students and give them a chance, you know, I've always joked with you, Kevin, right? If if I have two options, you can take three courses or I can get you out in one plus a support hour, which are you gonna choose? It seems easy. I mean, I think a student's gonna be willing to roll the dice and do the work. And I'm willing to even tell the students it's gonna be hard. But I think if they know what the end goal is, they they're gonna feel better in that model versus taking coursework that one doesn't count towards graduation, might count towards financial aid, but it too isn't gonna give them credit, isn't gonna automatically guarantee success in the next course. It it seems that that is a better approach to me, that co-requisite model.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

If someone today is listening and and they think, well, what Kevin's about to say is just wrong, feel free to tell me because I I I prescribe to the same thought that you just talked about, where it's one class versus two, two versus three. And and I get to this point, and you and I were having this conversation that you have two students that shine it sign up for a math class, right? You have your developmental transitional math course and you have your regular. Let's focus on the the transitional course, the developmental course. You got a hundred students that are in it, and the typical ABC rate for that course is probably, if we're being generous, probably 70%. And that's probably being generous because most of them are probably 60%. But let's say it's 70%. Well, okay, you take those 70 students, and now they have to go take the college algebra course, and the success rate of that is probably 60%. And so you're taking 60% of that 70%, and I'm not a math person here, but you're saying students, you know, 42 to 45 students that are in that range out of the initial 100 that got through the two classes. And the belief that is there, and some of what you're talking about, and also some of what the data says, and we're gonna talk about that here in a minute, is that if you put in like actual support into that gateway course, so if students taking college algebra instead of doing it two days or a week or three days a week, they do it five days a week, the success is likely to be greater than 45 or 42 percent that it is in the other the developmental course and then the regular college algebra course because you have more support, more wraparound. And and and that's the co-requisite model that I think allows some flipping of the script. In Tennessee, they started in 2014 a pilot at the nine community colleges they have there, where completion rates for college math jumped from 12%. Say that again, folks, 12% to 61%. And they did the same thing with English, where the success rate went from 31% to 64%. Yeah, that is a game changer. And says that the way that we're doing it with these siloed standalone courses is not working. Students are having a hard time putting that together with the actual content of a course that they need to be successful in.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah. And and look, I uh developmental math has fallen in my area, the last two institutions where I've worked, but we've been separate from the math department. So the other thing that I would say is if you're listening here and you have some involvement with developmental math, whether that's supporting students or as an advisor, I think the other piece that's really important here is to have a great relationship with your math departments, right? And starting to understand, you know, we've made a big change here. We're gonna have a lot fewer students taking developmental math this fall. And I think this only really works if math brings the goods ultimately, right? Because that experience in those courses, we're we've developed the COREC courses in our space, and our folks that usually teach developmental math are gonna teach those COREC support area courses that are aligned with the general education course that students are gonna take. But ultimately, that experience in the Gen Ed course has to be a part of this too. And so I think those conversations, those collaborations, they really matter. Uh, I know that in my work, really, the only job that I can control is to ensure that the developmental math courses that we do oversee are delivered in the best possible way. We've seen a lot of improvement there. My hope is that ultimately that improvement does lead to better outcomes in in general education math. But now we've added this co-requisite element here at ISU, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's going to happen there.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, and and this is probably, and it it does talk about this some in the uh Bridge to Nowhere publication that I think has had several versions since it initially came out in early 2000s. But this is the hard truth, and this isn't every campus by any means. So please hear me say this because pay equity and what people make and all that is different. There are a lot of campuses in a time frame in which we're having enrollment cliffs and various financial issues, they can't afford to get rid of developmental education. And here's what the truth is we are paying the people that teach developmental courses not a lot of money, yep, and we're charging full freight on tuition and fees for developmental course, and those are bringing in a lot of money to institutions. Yeah, and so as an institution, you have to decide that doing the right thing isn't always doing the thing that's gonna make you the most money, and for institutions that are struggling, that's a hard reality to face.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah, it is a hard reality to face. I think we have to center the student experience in this first and foremost, yeah. And and start to think about what is best for the student. I mean, it needs to be the most important consideration. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that. Um, that might be a little Pollyanna in some way, shape, or form, but I think administratively we have to look at the pass rates ultimately. Like we talked about pass rates aren't the only thing, but that progression through math really matters. And if if we can develop better pathways through math, even if it means a little less revenue, we we have to find ways to do that. I I just it's it's not easy, but I think it's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah, and I think that as institutions are doing this, and and maybe this will be my final point because I know it's a just us episode, so we we we gotta wrap this thing up in a fairly quick time frame. But this is a topic that I think we we should keep talking about because it is one of those that hits so many students. We talk about access and opportunity within our institutions, and we're in an enrollment cliff, which means people are stretching that line even more to try to get people on their campuses, whatever that might look like. Um, I'm gonna use Tennessee again as an example. Minority student success rates in math rose from 6.7 under traditional remediation pathways to 42.6 in the co-requisite model. That's a game changer. You're changing lives, you're changing the ability for students to be successful, and that is absolutely paramount, paramount to what we're supposed to be doing in the student success world that we live in.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yeah, hey, you know, Kevin, one of the things we didn't talk about, I we've got enough time to dig into this for a second, is the role that test course historically played in placement. I know California and the articles that I've read, there's been kind of a push to maybe reconsider using test scores as a requirement, right? All right, and so you know, I I think a lot of these changes happened historically once we got rid of test scores as a required component of admission to an institution and what role test scores have played in, say, for example, placement into math or or English. And I'm not sure that uh if you talk to folks in the math world, for example, I'm not sure they would automatically say that test scores are the best predictor. I think we would still probably look at what level of math did a student take, what kind of grades did they get? The problem is that's not an efficient way to place. That's kind of what we've decided to do here. We've eliminated test scores and we're digging into high school transcripts now that we've gotten rid of uh or trying to reduce the number of students taking developmental math. We're going into transcripts, looking at the grades that they've earned and then making a placement. We're gonna do some assessment of it and see how it works. Do you think getting rid of or bringing test scores back would make this better?

SPEAKER_01 27:49

I I have opinions about that. I think it's a fun narrative. Um, and and I will say this, folks, and we've I think we've had this conversation in the previous episode. I'm about as anti-test scores as any human can get. Uh, I'm a 16 ACT kid and I got doctor on the front of my name. So clearly that meant a lot. Um, and and so I'm pretty anti the test scores here. We it is a we are we're test optional campus um here at UCA, and so that's something that is part of my everyday world. But we're also somebody that from our scholarship standpoint use AC or use high school GPA for scholarship. We don't we don't even mess with ACT on SAT on that. Um, and so I think it's an interesting thing that people are holding on to. Um, I think there are campuses that it probably matters, and I would say that those are probably five percent of the campuses in this country and not the 95% that are serving the most students. And to jump back and all of a sudden this narrative is like, well, Harvard's doing this and Yale's doing that. Well, that ain't us, folks. That ain't the vast majority of people listening to this show or working in higher education, and so I'll use this example as uh my director of advising. She's not gonna love this story, but she it did happen. My director of advising sent me an article that was like, Do you think we're gonna get back to doing test scores? And she sent me a couple articles similar to what you're talking about, California and the customers. And and I said, No, I said, but what's making you think this? And she said, Well, I was talking to one of the department chairs, and they said, Ever since we've gone test optional, um, the success rates in these courses are just not as good. Okay, that's that's a surprising thing to say out loud. So let's look at the data, and I did. And for the last five years that we've been test optional, the GPA and the DFW percentage have been higher GPA, lower DFW percentage than in the five previous years of the courses that the department chair was saying was an issue. Wow, right, and so then I thought, well, I'm gonna go look at some of some of our other difficult gateway courses and see if it's the same. And it was the GPA was higher, DFW percent, DFW percentage is lower. And that's why I would also say that a part of this is changing the narrative means knowing the data, knowing what's happening in your courses. Because for me to say, hey, college algebra, when we put co-requisite remediation or co-requisite uh support into the course this last year, had the highest spring GPA that I can find on record, right? That's something that you need to be able to tell that story and say, This works.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Yeah, I I mean I don't I don't disagree. Uh I'm you and I have talked about our relative test scores. I probably did a little bit better on the ACT maybe than you did. And my SAT scores were pretty average at best. I wasn't a testing kid either. I didn't test very well. We were good Midwestern good students in high school, bad test score kinds of guys, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah, well, I did mine on paper and pencil. Did you use the thing where you you move the things? Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

What's that called? Yeah, no, paper pencil for me too. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'm not that old, Kevin. I am I know, I know. I just I hadn't gotten a little jab in there, so I'd figure we'll get a little bit. You know, where I've been, the two the last two places where I've been, the other thing that I think, and we haven't talked about this at all. Maybe uh we've had a guest recently kind of suggest that our responsibility to our local communities too, and helping high schools, you know, in these spaces be better deliverers of this content, right? Writing, reading, mathematics is something and uh somewhere where a university, I think, can do some really good things. But this assumption that everyone's gonna be ready in the way that we want them to be ready from an instruction perspective. I mean, if if everybody were really, I mean, it's obviously easy to teach all the really, really ready kids, the really, really ready students, but part of our work is to build students up that maybe don't have didn't have the tools, right? So part of this is about improving quality instruction all the way around. And that's something that we I at least I talk about here a lot.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I I would also just say for folks that are listening and say, I don't know that I really have any impact in this conversation. I think you do.

unknown 32:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

I think you do with how you support their journey and talk to parents about this being a part of their journey and then talk to administrators about what's going on. But this also is one of these topics that we just leave it sitting on the ground and we say, that's just the way. That rock's always been there, that rock will always be there. And sometimes that rock's in the way. And it's time to pick it up and to be a champion of something that that could potentially potentially change on your campus. And so um don't just let that rock sit there. Pick it up and and and see what you can do with it and see what changes you can make to hopefully make this a little bit better on your campus.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yeah, and when you disrupt the system, you force change, right? I mean, that's the thing. Yep. I mean, we've got a lot fewer students taking developmental math this fall at this institution. And when we look at pass rates, it's gonna tell us a story. And then now we have to deal with that story. When when when we got rid of most of our reading, developmental reading back at my at the University of Southern Indiana, we did some education on the front end with some of our general education courses about how they could integrate reading into their content, and you know what? It it's a disruption, and then it forces action, and that action oftentimes can be beneficial, it's not automatic. That's where reviewing and assessing the data really comes in. And so I like I like the idea of disrupting, not for disruption sake, but for student experience sake and for student pass rate's sake.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

I agree. And speaking of disruption, I'm gonna disrupt this conversation with some action. Oh it kind of leads to our topic because sometimes your opinion is uh gonna be related to disruption that occurs when you go to this type of establishment, which is our top three for today, which is the worst fast food establishments. We haven't talked about this. I'm really curious what your list might be.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

God, maybe I need some time to think about it. What are your lists? What's on your list?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

All right, so here we go. And and I'm gonna say three is the third worst, and my number one here is the worst, in my opinion. And so, number three on my list, I think is not gonna be on your list because you've talked about it with great before, is Taco Bell. No, yeah, here's the thing. First of all, they serve Pepsi, nobody wants that. Uh, secondly, secondly, it's also one of those things where no matter what, the way it looks in a commercial is not close to what you get. And and and I will say I kind of gave up on Taco Bell when they got it, they did away with the the Mexican pizza for a while, and it's like, what are you doing? And then they tried to bring it back and it just wasn't the same, it's just not the same. And so Taco Bell is my number three. Number two, I'm gonna put a slight tie in because I think it's the same garbage, which is Wendy's and Burger King. I just don't know what you're doing, like, unless you're going to get a frosty, and if you are, there are better options. Like, go to Dairy Queen, do something like that, right? Like, I Wendy's and Burger King is there, but my number one, and this is gonna be controversial, it's it's gonna rub some people wrong. It's five guys. What I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand. First of all, I'm not a big fry person, so you're gonna throw things at me for that one, but I'm not a big fry person, but I also don't want to spend $22 on a pretty basic burger with some pretty mediocre fries as a fast food option. Like, I listen, I know prices have gone up. No one wants that. I don't understand why people think this is good. I think it is straight garbage. Five guys, the worst fast food experience.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

You're terrible.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

I cannot disagree with that more. I knew listen, I knew this list was not gonna, we're not gonna have the same ones. I knew that was happening.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Well, I'll put Burger King there for sure. I mean, if if you need that kind of meal, McDonald's is the way to go every day of the week, twice on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Right. If Burger King's gonna say you can have it your way, my way is to just put that right into the trash can.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yes, yes, I mean the Whopper's not better than the quarter pounder with cheese or the McDouble or a double cheeseburger, like it's just not better. Okay, so we had one that we agree on, Burger King. All right, I'm I'm gonna go. Um so you mentioned Taco Bell, and I love Taco Bell. I know it's terrible, it's trash, but I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go Subway as one of my three. Like, I mean, there's so many better options: Jersey mics, Quiznos, Penn Station. Subway's terrible. I used to be a subway person and I had to stop, you know, and the other problem is my wife always gets tuna there, and my kids get tuna there, and I'm like, ugh. So I already feel terrible about that place. But and it's weird because I have to eat there, it's relatively healthy, and sometimes it's the only place in some of the towns that I drive through, so I still eat it, but I do not enjoy it at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

And the other reason I went to the one that was near campus, and I went there for a long time, is because we switched to being a Pepsi campus, and you used to be able to go and get a Diet Coke there, and so I'd walk and I'd just go get a Diet Coke, and that's what my caffeine for the day, because since I don't do coffee, and then I went in one day and they'd switched everything to Pepsi and I said, I'm done, I'm never going back to Subway.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Wow, I know and then pizza wise, like I was thinking about pizza. Oh I do not enjoy Papa John's at all. That is a kind of a hot take. Like, I'd much rather eat Domino's pizza than Papa John's pizza. I would much rather not eat either of them, but yes, yes, that I I I would I I I guess I agree.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

I don't know, they're both not great.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Domino's has gotten a lot better, and I they have some really good other items too that you can get. I think they're you know, their desserts are kind of fun, their chicken is kind of fun, they've done some flatbread things that are pretty interesting, they've gotten better. I so those were my three.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

I think that of our top three list recently, this is gonna be the one we take the most flack on. We're gonna get some text message from some friend or some email to our account, the pickup meeting at gmail.com, and it's gonna say, you all are wrong, and here's why you should have said X restaurant instead.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Yeah, here's the problem with this top three, too. Look, if if you put me in front of any of these restaurants and it's where I need to eat, I'm gonna find something to eat in all three, right? You are too. Yeah, you're just not gonna drink Pepsi.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Yeah, I don't yes, I would find something if it was the only option.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Yeah. All right, gang. Well, that does it for this edition of the pickup meeting. Uh, we hope all your meetings, uh whether they're formal or pickup style, are as fun and as meaningful as this one. Until next time, gang, let's just uh do good and be nice.