A Slice with 'Dice
A Slice with ’Dice is a weekly podcast exploring leadership, talent development, and the human side of high-performing systems. Drawing on decades of experience in gifted education and public leadership, host Corey Alderdice examines how institutions identify potential, navigate change, and create cultures where people can thrive. Each episode blends thoughtful reflection with practical insight for educators, leaders, and anyone interested in how talent and transformation intersect in real-world settings.
Episodes
182 episodes
The Messy Middle (Class) of College Costs
Families earning $200,000 a year are increasingly being told they qualify for significant college financial aid. That’s both a sign of progress in expanding access — and a startling reflection of just how expensive higher education has becom...
A Major Question About Undergraduate Minors
The undergraduate minor once served a simple purpose: it gave students a structured way to develop depth beyond their primary field of study. As universities move toward more flexible, workforce-oriented degree models, that raises a larger q...
A "Minor" Quarrel Over Gender Studies at UALR
A political fight over an optional Gender Studies minor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock raises questions that go well beyond one program or one campus. When legislators use the appropriation process to press universities toward ...
I Like My School. I Just Don’t Trust Public Education.
It is possible to like the school your child attends and still distrust public education. A new Gallup survey reveals the gap between lo...
(Encore) First Month Finished: A Gifted Parent’s Moment to Connect
The first month of school is often when the shine wears off and students begin carrying the real weight of routines, expectations, and belonging. For gifted students, the most important conversations may be the ones parents don’t force but m...
What the National Merit List Can—and Can’t—Tell Us
The annual National Merit Semifinalist list offers plenty to celebrate—but far less certainty than we sometimes attach to it. Geographic patterns can reveal real differences in access, preparation, and educational opportunity without serving...
Seeing the Whole School (Part 5): Proximity and Purpose in Practice
A school is always larger than the part of it we see most clearly. In the capstone episode of the series, the invitation to “see the whole school” becomes a concrete framework for understanding how the work actually fits together....
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“Guy-Fi” Lit and the Joy of Reading Again
What if the next big reading trend isn’t a formal genre at all, but a certain kind of story built around competence, camaraderie, irreverence, and a surprising amount of heart? From Dungeon Crawler Carl and ...
Seeing the Whole School (Part 4): The Work of Translation
Healthy schools do not choose between the work closest to students and the work that sustains the institution. They learn how to translate between them within the
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Don't Mistake Uncertainty for Inability (Or, Morte Vampir Morte)
Uncertainty has a way of disguising itself as a verdict. At the beginning of a new semester—or any unfamiliar season—the fact that we do not yet know what comes next can make us question whether we are capable of meeting it.Corey ...
Seeing the Whole School (Part 3): The Work Beyond the Classroom
The work that sustains a school is not always the work people see first. Sometimes the relationships, resources, trust, and stewardship that make student opportunity possible are built long before they become visible.Corey Alderdi...
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Michigan's Plan to Give Students Time to Land
The first semester of college asks students to master far more than academics alone. What if giving them a little room to land could ultimately prepare them to reach even higher?Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and tran...
Seeing the Whole School (Part 2): The Work Closest to Students
Some truths about a school can only be learned through daily proximity to students. They live in the classroom, the hallway, the advising conversation, the residence hall, the practice space, and the quiet moment when an adult notices that s...
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The Most Telling New Product in Higher Education
A Facebook advertisement for a legal subscription service for college students seems like an oddly specific product—until you realize it makes perfect sense. Sometimes the newest products tell us less about the companies selling them and mor...
Seeing the Whole School (Part 1): The Work Outside Our View
Every person in a school sees something real. But no one sees the whole school alone.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, opens the Seeing the Whole School series by exploring how every role in ...
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When Excellence and Opportunity Collide
Every summer, America seems to have the same argument about New York City's elite specialized high schools. But what if the real debate isn't about admissions at all—it's about asking one kind of school to serve two fundamentally different e...
College Before College (Part 9): Can Arkansas Become the National Model for Early College?
Arkansas may be emerging as one of the nation’s most ambitious laboratories for early college. Through the ACCESS Act, expanded concurrent-credit funding, a statewide goal for more students to earn associate degrees in high school, stronger ...
Coming Soon: Seeing the Whole School
Each August, schools begin again. As a new year opens, it is worth asking not only what our own work requires, but how that work connects to the responsibilities carried by others.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and tr...
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Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part 4): When Belonging Became Political
Belonging may sound like one of the least controversial ideas imaginable. Yet in recent years, even the language of belonging has become politically charged in schools and institutions across the country. Why?Corey Alderdice, a na...
College Before College (Part 8): Not Faster—Fuller
Curiosity isn’t disappearing from higher education—it’s being squeezed by cost, structure, and the pressure to get it right the first time. But what if the very tools designed to accelerate students could instead give that curiosity room to ...
Cook Out, Chaos, and Why Students Need A Bigger Menu
A bizarre internet meme about Cook Out and its legendary tray menu sparks a surprisingly thoughtful reflection on schools, identity, and the environments that shape young people. What begins with the question “What if a main entrée was a sid...
College Before College (Part 7): The Economics of Acceleration
As dual enrollment and concurrent credit continue expanding across the country, public conversations often focus on what students and families save through accelerated college pathways. But beneath the promise of affordability and access sit...
From Tiger Moms to “Beta Moms”
Parenting today can feel less like raising children and more like managing a complex, always-on operating system. Between achievement pressure, emotional labor, enrichment culture, and the invisible logistics of modern family life, many pare...
College Before College (Part 6): Access Is Not the Same as Success
As dual enrollment and early college programs continue expanding across the country, educational systems often assume that academic readiness and institutional readiness are largely the same thing. But a recent
Intellectual Sparring: When Debate Skills Become Leadership Blind Spots
For many former speech and debate students, rigorous disagreement doesn’t feel hostile. It feels energizing. Collaborative. Even connective. But what happens when the communication instincts forged in competitive forensics collide with leade...