Ashley Worley: I hadn't planned on being behind the mic.
I think she's really the impetus.
You saw her dragging me into this interview.
I was like, cool.
Your mic's set up.
Let's, you know.
Dr. Catherine Ross: I really wanted to make sure she got here.
Because honestly, if you're gonna give advice to folks out there in
the world of college or university broadcasting, maybe even high schools,
the companionship of the faculty to the student is one of the big products.
She brings, you know, we plan our ideas together.
We talk about, well, what do you think the students would like?
Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education
podcasters to learn and get inspired.
I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcast Company, and HigherEdPods.com.
Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee, founder at JPod Creations.
Podcasting is broadcasting.
We want you to know you're not alone.
In fact, there are many of you higher ed podcasters out there, and
we can all learn from each other.
Neil McPhedran: And a reminder, on that note about learning from each other.
I've talked about it a couple times in previous episodes, but our
Slack channel is live in Higher Ed Pods, and so that's a great place
to connect with other podcasters.
All you need to do is become a member of Higher Ed Pods, so in
the top right corner, just hit that and sign up, become a member.
Really easy, really quick.
And then through that you'll get your invitation to join the Slack channel.
We'd love to have you there.
Jennifer-Lee: It's a great place to be.
I'm really enjoying a lot of the conversations with the other podcasters.
Like we were talking about monetization the other day.
Because sometimes as podcasters you feel a little lonely.
So it's a great resource, I think.
And so get in there and let's have some more amazing discussions.
Neil McPhedran: Love it.
Yeah.
And swaps.
That's another one that's come up.
Promo swaps.
So if you're looking to connect with other higher ed podcasters and do
something like that, that is the place, and we're gonna start to really focus
in on that coming back to school.
So today, Jen, in this episode, we are chatting with Dr. Ross
from the Ask Dr. Ross Show.
And we had a fantastic conversation.
Catherine Ross is the Professor of English at University of Texas at Tyler.
Dr. Ross teaches British literature, and she launched her podcast Ask Dr.
Ross a couple of years ago, and they are just going into their next season,
starting right around now, actually.
And it's a really super interesting podcast where they answer the
important and nagging questions parents and potential college
students raise about higher education.
So topics they've covered off include things like preparing for college,
avoiding student debt, secrets of good grades, so on and so forth.
Dr. Ross is the host.
She has a co-host as well, and the co-host is Ashley Worley.
She's an honors in mass communications student and the producer as
well of Ask Dr. Ross podcast.
Jennifer-Lee: She hops on the podcast as well, which we thought
was really neat, because you can really see how much Dr. Ross
appreciates having Ashley on her team.
And she really wants everyone to know, like even when we contacted them for
an interview, that Ashley has really brought the podcast to a new level.
I love seeing that dynamic between teacher and student because sometimes
I think as students, we're kind of scared of our professors a little bit.
So I love the bond that they have and it really rings through in their podcast.
Neil McPhedran: Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, it was great.
And actually it was interesting 'cause at first we were going to
just be interviewing Dr. Ross.
And then quickly early on into the interview, Ashley was there in the
background and she pulled Ashley in.
And then Ashley's sort of part of the interview as well too, so.
Which I really liked, Jen, how that worked out, actually, in the end.
And in retrospect, we probably should have just sort of said in the beginning,
let's interview them both together.
But I love how it all worked out, where we interviewed them both and
kind of indicative, I would say, of the relationship they have.
Let's get into it.
Dr. Ross, it's great to have you here.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Oh, I'm happy to see you all and talk with you again.
Jennifer-Lee: We actually met Dr. Ross, usually Neil and I meet the people
that we interview first time here, virtually, and we got to meet Dr. Ross
at our first ever Higher Ed PodCon.
So we were like, you have to be on our podcast.
So it was really nice to finally like meet someone face-to-face instead
of just writing a cold email and be like, you don't know who we are, but
we'd love you to come on our podcast.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
Well, I do know who you are and I'm happy to be here, so don't worry.
Jennifer-Lee: Don't worry.
There we go.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
That's awesome.
So, we're calling you Dr. Ross, because that's the name of your podcast.
So I feel like I can't call you anything else actually, when we talk to you here.
So Ask Dr.
Dr. Catherine Ross: You're welcome to call me Catherine if you want.
Neil McPhedran: Okay.
But I love the ring to Dr. Ross.
So the podcast, Ask Dr. Ross, maybe you could just tell us a
little bit about the podcast and the reason that you launched it?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, okay, so I'm in the College of Arts and Sciences at the
University of Texas at Tyler, and we were given the opportunity to purchase a public
radio station about three years ago.
Everybody was very excited about it.
And the dean, who was a friend of mine, came to me and said,
we are gonna need content.
I want you to start a podcast about going to college.
And I said, okay.
It sounds like fun.
I've never done it before.
And originally we have a broadcast professor here who did television,
and she seemed to think she could get me launched okay.
Well, honestly, it took having a student like Ashley.
My first producer was another student who was very experienced
with the machinery to do it.
But anyway, Neil Gray asked me, Dean Gray asked me to talk about college
life, and I was thrilled to do that, because one of my big concerns right
now about higher education is a lot of people have a really skewed idea
of what it's like and what we do, and there's a lot of bad press out there.
And I thought, well, I think we can tell a better story.
The other thing too though, about it was that I, I didn't pick the title.
I did not want to have my name in it, but the folks on the team who
were managing the radio station liked that title, and so, there you go.
And, but anyway, Ask Dr. Ross does seem to work just fine.
Neil McPhedran: Got a great ring to it.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
Jennifer-Lee: It sounds like, I have to say because like growing up here
in Canada, and I think they had some in America, in America as well, but
it seems very like old school radio program, like, Dr. Ross where you
call in for your medical questions.
Like, I like it.
Neil McPhedran: Calling in for your college questions.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer-Lee: A little spin.
Yeah.
Like college.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Right.
Right.
Well, and it also gave us a kind of a hook.
So what is the question for this day?
You know, and sometimes we actually get students who call in, although
not as many as we would've liked.
In fact, Ashley has to plant questions with some of her classmates sometimes.
Neil McPhedran: We won't tell anyone.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
But we knew that there were questions we wanted to answer, so, there you go.
Jennifer-Lee: And can you tell us, she's sitting in the room and we've
met her and she's lovely, and we know that she's your driving force.
Can you tell us a little bit more about Ashley and her role?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Sure.
Well, the first year I had a young man who was actually the editor of
our newspaper and did a lot of digital things and he was, what I said in my
talk there, he said he was real hot, fast, zippy kind of a fella and he kind
of oftentimes outpaced me, you know, the old school lady here, but he moved on
and I was desperate to get a new person.
And Ashley, who is an honors student in our College of Arts and Sciences, and
who is also, uh, communications major and does her own movies, what else do you do?
Ashley Worley: Oh, I write and just stuff in my free time.
I write, like to write books.
I do a little bit of illustration just for fun.
And mostly short films though.
Dr. Catherine Ross: But she's very technical and I am very untechnical,
and so Ashley originally volunteered to do it just for the experience.
After about three or four months, I was able to get the dean to pay her.
So it's now her college job and boy does she take it seriously.
Jennifer-Lee: I love the fact that, this is something Neil and I are learning
on the podcast, beyond just having listens in college and university
podcasts, but they're creating different roles within the institutions.
And when I went back to university, some of the college jobs were like
working in the cafeteria, working at the student union building and stuff.
But it's neat that a lot of them are having these jobs that are gonna be
things that you could potentially go to work for later in life.
So I always find interesting that when Neil and I look at university
podcasting, it's beyond the microphone.
People don't realize the power of podcasting.
It's not just people talking and giving awareness.
It's creating other jobs and opportunities for people.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Oh, exactly.
In fact, as soon as I got back from the conference, I went straight
to the dean and, because everybody was talking about student interns.
And Ashley worked so hard, there are days when I wonder if I'm, you know, the
abusive employer that, the stuff she does.
So I anticipate, especially as we add more podcasts, the goal of this, now, I
just have to tell you, the sad story is we ended up selling our radio station.
There were a number of sort of political issues.
'Cause we were originally using some national public
radio kinds of programming.
And finally it just got to be too thorny.
So now, however, we have all this equipment, and the job of the
communications department is to start growing the podcasting program.
Now, it's interesting, I'm not in communications, I'm in English.
I'm an English professor, but I guess the good news is I'm a pretty good voice
for this, and apparently people wanna ask me questions, so I'm ready to answer.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
So you're in between seasons right now, so you'll have another season
starting as school comes back then?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Correct.
Correct.
And we've already got four episodes ready and loaded.
Ashley Worley: We actually, ours is dropping today.
The first episode of season three drops today.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
Oh wow.
Excellent.
That's exciting.
So, coincide with the beginning of the school year, so that's great, so.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Right.
There, it was, the first one is like ten, ten bits of advice from Ashley and Dr.
Ross about how to start out well in the college year, I think is what it's called.
Something like that.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
So the audience then, for the podcast is, I was interested, actually,
you called out, it's for family and prospective students, and
obviously existing students as well.
That, that I thought, I like that it's very focused on new students and
prospective students, basically, but not just the students, the larger family,
which is kind of part of decision making process, et cetera, I guess.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah, yeah.
Well we, you know, the universities, all universities and ours is like
this with always bringing people in.
We have the top twenty-five percent graduates of the local high schools.
They bring them in and take them through and show them what UT Tyler's
like, and parents come with them.
Let's face it, the parents are mostly paying for it.
Although, many of our students are working at least halftime.
Again, this comes back to my wanting to tell the story better so people know.
One of the first things that high school students seem to learn is that they think
all professors are really terrifying and hate you and want to force you to fail.
And my students will say, you are really different than what the high
school teachers told us you were like.
And that's a part of it.
But also the audience out there of adults who are suspicious about higher
education, I want them to hear how hard we work to be inviting and help
students belong and feel connected.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, it's so interesting about all the misconceptions
that happen in high school.
I would also say too, that sometimes, and it depends where you are, is I just
feel in general, and I don't know what country does it better, but I feel like
sometimes high school doesn't prepare you enough either for college or university.
Dr. Catherine Ross: You know, Jen, I'm really glad you said that.
In fact, I recently wrote an article with a friend of mine who's a principal
of a high school, who's also an English teacher, about this disconnect
between high schools and colleges.
And you know, the first thing I noticed when I went back to grad school, I'd been
teaching at a boys preparatory school in Dallas before I went back to grad school.
And I couldn't believe how different the critical work in English literature was
at the university, 'cause of course it was cutting edge compared to what we were
teaching our high school students to do.
And I thought, oh my god, you know, this is not good.
These parents are paying lots of money to write a kind of essay
that was popular fifteen years ago.
And I think that's one of the things that happens a lot.
High school teachers, you know, they're remembering college from their days
and there's not always that connection.
And of course, I think high school teachers are often anxious about
interfacing with us as well.
So I would like, one of my big goals in the coming years, is to reach out to more
and more high schools, to the students, the teachers, the parents, and to help
them see how different college really is.
It's friendlier.
The work is very different.
The lifestyle is different.
And, you know, nothing can prepare you for that, no matter, I dunno
if it's big in Canada, but in the US a lot of students are taking
what they call dual credit courses.
And these are college level courses, but a lot of times they're taking
'em as a fourteen or fifteen year old student and they're not getting the
experience of attending classes twice a week for an hour and twenty minutes.
And having to manage their own time and figure out how to use the library
in a new way, things like that.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, there's a big shift that happens from going
from, well, even high school, even if you don't end up going into
post-secondary education right away.
It's very different because I remember thinking it's like you go, you know,
it's very cliquey in university.
The teachers kind of treat you differently and then, all of a sudden, this thing
you've been doing forever, you leave it and it's like you're an adult and
everyone acts differently around you.
Like it's way different.
It's like, okay, you gotta get a job.
Pay your bills.
It's like everyone starts back at the same level.
I remember going to college and it's like everything's out the window now.
It is a very different feeling.
Everyone treats you like an adult.
No one's treating you with like, oh, you're a high school student.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you know, one of the series we're working on is I took some students
from their freshman year in October and interviewed them, and then we
interviewed them again in February and we just interviewed him again.
The first one is, oh, you know, I was so anxious about the professors
and I didn't know what advising was and all these sort of things.
Now they're very cool.
They've got it down.
One of 'em has already become a resident advisor and he's grown a mustache
and he looks like a real grownup and, but he also moves with greater
assurance and he changed his major.
He, he didn't know you could do that.
And of course, actually in the conversation that we had from the very
first interview, I'm sure I talked about that because I've experienced that a
lot with students, is they come and think, oh, I wanna be an accountant, I
wanna be a lawyer, I wanna be a doctor.
And they take a philosophy class and they go, oh my god, that's so different.
Or they take a psychology class or an English class and learn that
there's something else they can do.
The other thing that I think a lot of students don't realize is the name of
your major doesn't mean that's what you'll end up doing in life, you know.
That there's skills, especially with like an English major or philosophy
major, which are in our college, you know, what job do you get with that.
Well, you get about twenty-seven different kinds of jobs, because
of the soft skills you learn about critical thinking and communicating and
doing research and solving problems.
And that's a big change for a lot of students is that they come to
college thinking they're gonna prepare to be a certain kind of worker.
And what they learn is that, boy, that's four years down the line, you've got
some other things to learn how to do.
Would you agree with that, Ashley?
Ashley Worley: Yeah.
I'd say so.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah, now Ashley didn't go to a high school.
She is a product of homeschooling, which I think is part of the reason
why she's so good at what she does, because she's a real self-starter.
And a lot of the students that are not homeschooled, that have gone to our public
high schools, and I don't mean to say anything ugly about our high schools, but
they're more rigid and I think students don't have quite as much freedom the way
Ashley had to sort of develop her skills.
So yeah, going back to this, I really love the idea of parents of
high school students, high school students, teachers in high schools,
for them to be part of our audience.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
I love how you're tackling this challenge, as we just described here.
Why do you think podcasting is such a, a good medium to do this?
Like what have you sort of over the last couple of years doing this,
I'm sure you've seen some change.
It started as a radio show, which is really interesting.
I like to talk a little bit more about that, but just podcasting
overall, like why do you think it's a good channel medium for this?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, for one thing we know it's in that social
media area that everybody uses now.
Someone said the great thing about podcasting, it's something for your
ears to do when your eyes are busy.
Neil McPhedran: I like that.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
It's a great, it's a great line, isn't it?
Yeah.
Neil McPhedran: Yes.
I'm gonna use it.
Dr. Catherine Ross: And we also, by the way, use that as an excuse to
not worry about having to do video of our program, because whereas there
may be some folks who wanna see what we look like and may be surprised
the way we look, given our voices.
But anyway, yeah, I, I really think that there's, well, I see students on their
phones all day long, you know, with earphones or earbuds, and so there's that.
It's just the way now, Ashley, would you agree that, that it's just so
regularly used now by kids, by students?
Ashley Worley: I think so, and I think the big advantage to trying to spread
any kind of a message, but also this one through podcasting specifically,
is just because of how accessible it is, like she was talking about.
I know that there's a lot of entertainment focus in podcasting, as far as I can
see, but using it also for education or having the advantage of this platform
where you can blend the entertainment aspects and the educational material.
It makes it really easy and a more digestible way of delivering
that to students, I think.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah.
Another thing we started doing is we started shortening our podcast.
We originally were doing, we would interview for an hour and a half and we're
cutting it back to twenty-five minutes.
'Cause I think that's more accessible also.
It's part of the story, isn't it?
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
That's great.
Jennifer-Lee: There's a stat recently, they said most podcasts should be
between twenty to forty minutes.
'Cause that's what the majority of people are listening to at the moment.
I truly believe content dictates.
And I think you could have a shorter podcast or a longer
podcast depending on what you have.
And it's interesting to go to the, you were talking about
accessibility and stuff.
There was a stat that I, I would like to find a newer stat on it, but a few
years ago they said, most people listen to a podcast to learn something new.
And that was eighty-five percent of the population for podcasting.
So it's like, yes, entertainment's there, but most people are listening to learn.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, and you know, one of the things I like about what
Ashley does is, you know, she posts with description of what's coming.
And so people know what they're listening to.
We try to make a title that is clear about what you will learn.
If you wanna learn this one, this is the one to learn from.
Jennifer-Lee: I was gonna say, speaking of learning something
new, I just had a question about this, 'cause it was interesting.
I heard it yesterday.
I was in a coffee shop and just ironically, two teachers were
talking about using AI in English and written papers, usuing Grammarly,
and how the students, it's changing the way that they write and they
don't have those hardcore skills of learning English in a proper way.
So I was just wondering, because obviously you're in the post-secondary space, maybe
it's episode for your next season, are you gonna do anything on how to prepare
to use AI properly when you're a student?
Dr. Catherine Ross: I just finished sitting in for two days
on the Harvard Open AI Summit.
And heard the fellow from Princeton who, you know, it was that Princeton
under his work with his grad students that created ChatGPT.
And he gave a very interesting talk about what he thinks AI is going
to do, and then different workshops about where we're gonna take it.
I'm actually an early adopter.
I've been using it ever since I started seeing what it could do.
And it's my view that it will become as common in everybody's
use as a calculator is.
And I think one of the ways it's gonna do, and this is one of the areas that
worries me, is it will write for you.
And I know a, one of the things that came out in this workshop yesterday, with all
these folks from Harvard and Cambridge and Stanford and MIT, was that a lot of people
use it regularly to compose their emails.
And I will admit to having taken an email that I was, you know, I remember one of
them, I was really mad at my students for doing something and I composed this email.
I thought, oh, if I send that, that's gonna really tick 'em off
and it will not be successful.
So I sent it through AI and it made it much better, you know, so that
there's good reason to do that.
Although the big worry for teachers of English is that students will not
learn how to write and think through.
The thing I like about AI is that it predicts and it surveys what
is out there in general usage.
One of the hardest things for students to learn how to write is to write
like more sophisticated writers write.
And so that's really what AI does when you ask it to write something,
it will pull on the sort of common vernacular, which is usually a much more
sophisticated level than high school students and college students are used to.
Yes, there's a big issue about using it ethically.
It's biased, and they pointed that out in one of the workshops, how biased it could
be, kind of western white world bias.
But it's ubiquitous already and it's going to be a part of our life.
And so I'm teaching, I have all my students take their first assignment
and before they write it themselves, ask AI to write it and then say,
okay, now, don't look at that.
Put that aside.
And now you write it.
And we'll compare them, so they can see.
But yeah, it's gonna be a big problem.
And you know, it's interesting.
Some folks are saying, no AI, period.
It's a terrible thing.
I think that's a big mistake.
Neil McPhedran: Agreed.
You gotta, I think you're right.
It's a good way to look at it.
It's gonna be ubiquitous like the calculator is.
There was a lot of pushback over that, wasn't there.
I wasn't around we, we weren't around then.
But I mean, I've read about that, so, yeah.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well I do think, you know, the fear is that
people will not learn how to do the things that AI does for them.
And that's gonna be my argument to them is that, yes, AI will do it for you,
but you need to be able to do it too and be able to also make it your own.
Because, so for example, this morning I was writing an email to the provost about
a problem I have with a funding for my fellowship and I wrote two versions on
my own and then I ran it through ChatGPT and I still like mine better, you know?
But I do think it can help students see the difference between a kind of clunky,
not very elegantly phrased sentence, and a more elevated level of sentence
structure that they can start imitating.
Jennifer-Lee: See, this is gonna be like a four part podcast
episode on the Dr. Ross show.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, let me add one other thing.
I'm part of a, the American College University Association has got a
national institute on AI this, starting this month, and I'm part of that.
There're four of us at UT Tyler.
I've been asked to be part of that.
So I'll be somebody you can consult about AI.
Because I'm really looking forward to what this big consortium
is gonna be able to teach me.
Neil McPhedran: I am going to do a plug here for another podcast that we work
with which is called Normal Curves.
And it's two statistics professors that have just launched a podcast.
It's a really good podcast.
Their episode this past Monday, so if you're listening to this, that would
be sort of August 12th basically that dropped, is there's the MIT study
that came out about a month ago that was basically saying, your brain
is mush on AI and it's ruining our brains and our critical thinking.
They rip the paper apart 'cause it's actually really bad science of the paper.
So that's not a true proposition.
But anyway, listen to the episode.
It's really good.
It's super interesting.
Dr. Catherine Ross: I will, I'm glad to know that.
Neil McPhedran: Normal, normal curves.
I, I wanna just circle back to the show though, because I like how you've
anchored everything in a question.
And back to your point about the title, you're totally right.
You guys do a good job with that.
So instead of tackling a theme and doing an episode about a theme, you're
still doing that, but you've brought it to a question to start with.
I like that format a lot.
You, maybe just sort of, for someone who's thinking about tackling the same
problem or coming up with a show for family and students like you have.
Am I right about anchoring it in a question?
It seems like a really good strategy.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, I, we kind of fell into it to be honest, but it
actually fits with a kind of basic teaching principle, which is that
the really best way to focus a course is to have it focus on questions.
Big questions.
Rather than saying, I'm gonna tell you this.
Let me ask you a question.
You know, what makes for a meaningful life?
What makes a really effective novel?
Why do people go to war?
I mean, I'm making really big ones there, but you can make
them more and more nuanced.
And when you ask a question, then you're inviting people in.
Part of my job is to answer the question, but also to get other people to answer it.
So, for example, one of the early ones with my first producer,
Nathan, who was very upset about politics, and so I brought in
the political science professor.
And he was able to, you know, why is it so crazy right now?
Professor Bryant could talk to him about that.
Did the same thing with, he was very upset about the economic situation.
I brought in an economics professor and she was able to explain to
him about the ebb and flow of economies and things like that.
I don't think he was convinced at all, but we gave him the
opportunity to ask his questions.
Jennifer-Lee: I think a lot of higher ed could really use yours
as an example to take a question and build a topic around it.
Because I think a lot of the times when people, and this goes for any podcasters,
a lot of times when people are doing a podcast, specifically when it's related to
an institution or a business or a brand, they try to think of titles and topics
that are not necessarily searchable, or things that people are inquiring about.
Or they have a great topic, but then they try to do a title that's too sexy
and they like spend like twenty minutes trying to crack down on the title, and
it's like, no, just tell me what it is.
Am I gonna learn how to do math?
Because that's what you gotta remember when I'm, I am the listener,
I'm searching for these topics.
I wanna know why.
Like, I love your topics.
Like they're so easy.
And now I know that Ashley was the inspiration probably for this, but how
can homeschoolers prepare for college?
Very straightforward.
I know what I'm gonna get.
Ashley, did she do a good job on that one?
Ashley Worley: I think it was a fun episode.
We had several of my friends, one of whom I was at the same homeschool co-op
with for college prep in high school.
We all got to come and have a conversation about that together.
But yeah, I think the questions do help with keeping on a topic and making
sure that we're giving something very practical and that's useful to the
audience member, whoever they might be.
Dr. Catherine Ross: And also in line with this notion of I want to dispel
misconceptions about higher education.
When I got ready to introduce Ashley at the PodCon in our workshop,
she asked me not to identify her as a homeschooled student.
And the reason is that there's a lot of negativity about that.
And, you know, she doesn't come from the fringe types of folks who do
homeschooling, but she was afraid that that would give the wrong impression.
And once you met her, you knew, I mean, and my god, this girl has
done, her work ethic is unbelievable.
And I'll add this, when we went to the conference, her parents came with us.
And I got to meet her parents and now I know why she's so good,
'cause they're just wonderful.
Her father was actually an actor in New York, in LA for a while.
Before we did our presentation, we went up to their hotel room and
said, would you all listen to us and make sure we got this right?
And what was really charming is her father says, well, I didn't
expect it to be that good.
You know, I've got a really high standard and, and that really
lifted our wings because we weren't sure how it come across.
So anyway, yeah, I think that whenever we can answer questions and help
people out of confusion, I mean, that's what my whole job is as a
professor, that's what I'm always doing.
You know, you read a novel and, you know, or this chapter, and why did that
character do that ridiculous thing?
Or why did the writer write it that way?
And what does this mean?
And so explaining all of that is sort of what I do.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, I think it's excellent.
I mean, when you first introduced yourself and your show, the title and
your name, it works well together and I got an idea what the show was, and
so it's very memorable and I like it.
You mentioned a few minutes ago in our conversation when you came back
from PodCon, you went to the dean and you talked about sort of opening up
the aperture on podcasting overall, and now with the change in the radio
station and the equipment or whatever.
Is there anything you can sort of give us insight into there?
I think that's interesting.
Where are you guys going with podcasting then in general?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, and again, this is a little tricky because I'm
in the English department and he's tasked the communications department
with developing things, but I think they look at my podcast as sort
of a model for people to follow.
We now have a professor, in fact, I passed out her cards.
It's called Averse Reaction.
It's one of the English professors, she's an Americanist.
It's about verse and poetry.
Uh, and so she did that and it's, as you say, kind of an
evergreen freestanding thing.
The professor who came to talk about politics is working on a political,
and although honestly, right now with the political situation in
the state of Texas, I'm not sure he's gonna do that for a while.
Although I would love for him to do it because he's so sensible and reasoned.
It would be really nice to have somebody talk about politics who isn't, you
know, real red or real blue and, you know, kind of over the top angry.
Neil McPhedran: We need way more sensibility and reasonability, please.
Yes.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Right.
But to go back to your question, the dean has charged the department and one
of the people, when we lost the radio station, several employees had to go too.
But we did keep the director of that who, her name is Lori Allen, and she
is a very, very fine public speaker.
She's got all these awards for that.
There's some sort of group she belongs to.
And she was a television news reader in Dallas and I think in Colorado,
and so she's remained on and so she's the person who we report to now,
and that will be her job soon is to start, you know, building that out.
But it'll be kind of up to the faculty and then what students they can recruit.
Of course, I wanted the dean to understand that we could make a good
argument for students using it as professional line item on their resumes.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Catherine Ross: And you know the folks at Stanford, your keynote
speaker, he talked about that.
He's got all sorts of volunteers.
Yeah.
Neil McPhedran: Yep.
Matt has, you know, he gets approached for interns, like a lot of professors
do, but he puts them to work on the show.
And then to your point, they use that as part of their CV.
They're doing a real job on a show that they can point to.
It's everywhere, right?
So I completely agree with you.
It's not just a tool for communicating, but it's also a platform for, you
know, your show as a prime example for students to get real experience and
have a real job in the in, in your case.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, and I think Ashley will tell you
that she has a lot of fun.
Ashley Worley: Yeah, it's fun and I mean, honestly, when do you get the
opportunity to get paid to do all this kinds of just straight up fun stuff.
Like you can talk to all these various kinds of people and then
listen back to the conversations.
I find editing fun.
I'm a mass comm student, and so that's a big part of what I do.
So yeah, it was a crazy amazing opportunity when this
became like a paid position.
Because I know also a lot of podcasts just start with a microphone and a laptop
in somebody's bedroom, and you have to work at it for a long time before
that ever becomes a paid opportunity.
So I felt very, very lucky.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Yeah, I'm not sure how many paid opportunities we'll have.
The dean was happy with the idea on the one hand of offering it as a
volunteer opportunity, but I think for Ashley, starting out as a volunteer
and then getting good at it, we were able to move it into a paid position.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, yeah.
I think it's great that she's part of the show.
I think it's great that you have this, the, the, you know, you
have a co-host that's a student.
'Cause I think that lends probably a lot of credibility to the perspective,
like the high school students or the new students to hear the
co-host is, is a student too, right?
So I think that's great, that's a great dynamic.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Well, and if you listen to the episode just dropped
and the one after that, we did a tip, there are two tip episodes.
The second one is about tips on how to make friends.
We had so much fun doing 'em, and I remember after, Ashley
will edit it and throw it back to me and say, what do you think?
And I'll say, well, let's cut this out and dah, dah, dah, dah.
I was, I really enjoyed it.
You know, sometimes when I'm listening to it after we've already done, it's kinda
like, okay, well that's pretty good.
Actually I got kind of a kick out of listening to it.
I felt like we've really, over the year we've really developed
a rapport that I enjoy very much.
And I will add going to the PodCon conference was part of that because
we had such a good time there and you know, eating breakfast
with her parents was a hoot.
I must tell you, you should all meet her parents.
Ashley Worley: I hadn't planned on being behind the mic.
I think she's really the impetus.
You saw her dragging me into this interview.
I was like, cool, your mic's set up.
Let's, you know.
Neil McPhedran: It's great.
I love it.
I love how this has ended up.
It's perfect.
It's really good.
Dr. Catherine Ross: I told her I needed her to set up.
I didn't use Squadcast, I had to borrow a mic from our digital design studio,
and I told her all that, but I really wanted to make sure she got here because
honestly, if you're gonna give advice to folks out there in the world of college or
university broadcasting, maybe even high schools, the companionship of the faculty
to the student is one of the big products.
But she brings, you know, we plan our ideas together.
We talk about, well, what do you think the students would like?
She brought up, we have a thing called rec sports and also eSports, and I didn't
know anything about eSports, and so we've got a episode on both of those.
Neil McPhedran: Great.
My son's a big gamer, so I understand the eSports thing.
Dr. Catherine Ross: Oh, do you?
Neil McPhedran: There you go.
So, well, it's been fantastic to chat with both of you today and thank you so
much for sharing a few things with us.
Can I leave you with a tip for your YouTube channel, and maybe this
is for other listeners out there?
Dr. Catherine Ross: Absolutely, absolutely.
Neil McPhedran: About six months ago, they, YouTube provided the
ability to actually designate, there's a podcast tab, so you're
basically calling your show a podcast.
You're telling YouTube it's a podcast and it categorizes it differently, and then it
puts the podcast in the tab where's shorts and videos and everything in the tab.
Actually adds it as a podcast in there.
So then the algorithms start to recognize it as a podcast and then
put it in the mix of podcast shows.
What it does immediately is it just sort of signals something very
differently to YouTube as well.
YouTube is actually two apps, right?
It's the main app, which we're all familiar with, and then there's a
billion people use YouTube music, which is the competitor to Spotify,
so it's especially important for that.
Because then they have a full podcast section in that app, and then
your show starts to index in that.
Right now, it's not indexing in the podcast component,
although it's a podcast.
Dr. Catherine Ross: That's great.
We, as soon as we get off of this, we're gonna fix that right now.
Neil McPhedran: That's right.
You know what?
This is, we'll put in our show notes, there's a really good link to YouTube
of setting up a podcast in YouTube.
We'll make sure we, for listeners, we'll make sure we put that in the show notes.
Ashley Worley: Great.
Neil McPhedran: Wonderful to have you guys.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Catherine Ross: It was fun talking to you.
Thank you.
See you again.
Neil McPhedran: Jen.
Loved that.
Loved our conversation.
I wish she was my professor when I was at university taking English,
struggling through English.
I think she would've been the kind of the professor I would've
wanted to have learned from.
Yeah, really, really enjoyed that conversation.
Learned a lot.
And there is some really, just as we said kind of off the top, and as I
think you've probably heard through the interview, like what a dynamic that Dr.
Ross and Ashley have, and obviously that just makes the show that much better.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, and I love that.
You can just see the compliment each other so perfectly, so it was great.
And we knew that from the start.
When you and I met them the night before the PodCon show when we did our little
mixer, just so kind and lovely energy.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
I think it's just a great podcast theme.
A love the name of it as we talked about.
I think it's a useful resource for perspective students, not necessarily
going to the University of Texas, but I also think it could be the kind of podcast
that other professors, students, whatnot, could mimic for their schools as well,
if you really wanna get into it being more specific about the school itself.
So I think there's a lot of really cool things that we as
higher education podcasters could learn from the ask Dr. Ross show.
Jennifer-Lee: Agree.
It's not limited, just there.
So these things are things that other students need to know.
Like I want to know what is the secret to good grades.
I feel like that's an amazing topic.
Neil McPhedran: You're done.
You already did university.
Jennifer-Lee: I did, but I wish I knew that back in the day.
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