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
156 episodes
The Debate Skills We Teach Are the Ones Society Is Losing
Americans still celebrate debate as a cornerstone of democracy, yet healthy disagreement feels increasingly rare in modern life. As algorithms reward outrage, certainty, and performance over curiosity and persuasion, the ability to thoughtfu...
College Before College (Part 4): What Should We Actually Measure?
As dual enrollment expands across the country, the conversation is beginning to shift from simple access and participation toward a more complicated question: how do we determine whether acceleration is truly working? A newly released resear...
How a Personal Pan Pizza Motivated a Generation to Read and Why It Still Matters
A free pizza for finishing a book may seem simple, but it was part of a larger effort to spark reading at a time when literacy was a growing national concern. Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, re...
College Before College (Part 3): The Blurring Line Between High School and College
As more students complete college-level coursework during high school, the traditional boundary between secondary education and higher education is beginning to blur. And that raises a much bigger question than simply how many credits studen...
When Good Isn’t Good Enough Anymore
Some students begin searching for something different long before anything appears “wrong” from the outside. The grades are strong, the friendships are there, and yet a growing sense of mismatch can quietly emerge between what students need ...
College Before College (Part 2): When Achievement Becomes Accumulation
Students today are accumulating more credentials, more transcript hours, and more visible markers of achievement than ever before. But as acceleration expands, an important question sits underneath the surface: are we beginning to confuse th...
The "Former Gifted Kid" Problem Starts Earlier Than You Think
Gifted students are often the ones adults worry about the least. They make the grades, meet expectations, stay productive, and appear remarkably capable. But beneath that competence, many are quietly learning how to manage pressure, conceal ...
College Before College (Part 1): How Dual Enrollment Became Mainstream
Earning college credit in high school was once viewed as a specialized opportunity for a relatively small group of students. Today, acceleration has rapidly become mainstream, reshaping expectations for students, families, schools, and highe...
This Wasn't Your Best Work
A single sentence can challenge us, motivate us, or make us feel small. The difference often comes down to trust.Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores the delicate balance between candor and care...
Why Demonstrated Interest Matters More Than Ever in Selective College Admissions
As selective college admissions continues to shift, strong students and families need to understand not only how to build a strong application—but how colleges interpret genuine interest.In this jumbo-sized episode, Corey Alderdic...
Tulane Killed the ‘Why Us?’ Essay. That Matters More Than You Think.
Why did Tulane drop its “Why Tulane?” essay—and what does that tell us about where college admissions is heading? The change may seem small, but it points to a larger shift from what students say about fit to what thei...
Coming Soon: College Before College
Dual enrollment and early college programs have rapidly shifted from specialized opportunities into a defining feature of modern American education. Students are earning college credit earlier than ever before, but the rise of acceleration i...
If It Surprises You, We Failed
Clarity doesn’t make a school easier—but it does make it more trustworthy. And in selective environments, that difference matters more than we often admit.Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores wh...
Rebuilding Trust in Colleges Isn’t a PR Problem
Higher education doesn’t have a messaging problem—it has a trust problem. And the more openly institutions acknowledge that reality, the more complicated the path forward becomes.Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and tra...
Teacher Appreciation Week Got Meme-ed by the US Dept. of Education
A Teacher Appreciation Week meme campaign from the U.S. Department of Education may have been designed for engagement, but its fictional teacher choices revealed something deeper about how educators are feeling right now. Beneath the nostalg...
Not Faster—Fuller: What Early College Credit Makes Possible
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 ...
STARS College Network and the Future of Rural Talent
Some students grow up surrounded by opportunity so constantly that college feels like the next obvious step. For many small-town and rural students, though, the challenge is not a lack of talent, but the quieter difficulty of seeing ambitiou...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part 3): Choice, Scale, and the Obligation to Design
Belonging cannot be a boutique advantage.If mentorship, purpose, depth, and engagement truly predict long-term success, then designing for belonging isn’t a marketing strategy — it’s a moral obligation.Corey Alderdice, a na...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part 2): Designing for S.P.A.C.E.
Schedule is never just about time. Assessment is never just about grades. If belonging truly predicts thriving, then the real question is whether our systems are aligned to produce it.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent an...
Belonging Is Not an Accident (Part 1): The Six Experiences That Predict Success
Belonging isn’t a soft idea. It’s a structural one.What if the strongest predictors of long-term success in college — and life — have less to do with prestige and more to do with experience?Corey Alderdice, a nationa...
Maxxed Out: Young Men, Old Scripts, and New Pressures
Masculinity is being optimized, marketed, and polarized in real time. But what if the real work is slower and more integrated?Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explores the modern crisis among young m...
What Phone Policies Say About the Schools We’re Building
A ringing phone. A Saturday school. A moment that opens up a much bigger conversation about rules, responsibility, and what schools are really trying to protect.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explo...
Nunchi: The Quiet Superpower Every Teen Needs
What if one of the most powerful skills a teenager could develop didn’t come from textbooks or test prep, but from the ability to quietly read the room? In Korean culture, this skill is called nunchi—a subtle kind of s...
Creative Capital: Investing in Arts Education
Creativity isn’t enrichment. It’s infrastructure. And if we misunderstand that, we misunderstand the future of our economy.Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, explores why arts education must be reframe...
Coming Soon: Belonging in Schools Isn't Accidental
Why does belonging matter so much for student success?In this teaser, Corey Alderdice introduces a three-part series exploring the role of belonging in education, beginning with research from Gallup and Purdue showing its connecti...
