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 transformation, explores the University of Michigan’s decision to cover first-semester grades for students in its largest college. Drawing on two decades of working with talented learners in demanding residential environments, he considers how the pilot might support tightly wound high achievers, first-generation students, and others learning the unwritten curriculum of college. The goal should not be permission to do less, but permission not to have everything figured out from the moment students arrive.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 something has changed.

Corey Alderdice, a national voice in talent and transformation, continues the Seeing the Whole School series by turning toward the work closest to students within the Proximity and Purpose Continuum. This episode honors the daily labor of teachers, counselors, advisors, coaches, mentors, and student support professionals whose proximity gives them insight that no report or dashboard can fully capture. Alderdice explores how student-proximate work gives schools their moral center, keeping institutional language grounded in lived experience.

At the same time, he considers the limits of proximity when immediate needs become disconnected from broader institutional purpose. The episode challenges schools to listen carefully to those closest to students while also helping that insight become part of a larger, sustainable vision for the whole institution.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 more about the institutions they're built around.

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores what the emergence of "college legal insurance" reveals about the changing relationship between families and higher education. As colleges have become more expensive, more regulated, and more procedurally complex, trust has increasingly given way to policies, processes, and professional advocacy. Rather than debating the merits of one legal service, Corey examines the broader forces that made such a product possible—and what it suggests about the future of higher education.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 a school comes with a distinct line of sight. Teachers, counselors, coaches, students, families, board members, advancement officers, civic partners, and school leaders each experience the institution from a particular vantage point. The challenge is that these views, while true, are also incomplete.

In this episode, Alderdice introduces the Proximity and Purpose Continuum as a way to understand how schools must connect the work closest to students with the work that sustains the institution. At its heart, this episode invites educators and stakeholders to approach the new school year with humility, curiosity, and a renewed commitment to seeing beyond the part of the school closest to them.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 educational missions?

Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, explores the decades-long controversy surrounding schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech through a different lens. Drawing on research in gifted education and his own experience leading a selective residential STEM school, Corey argues that identifying talent and developing talent are distinct organizational competencies that often require different institutional designs. Rather than forcing every specialized school to pursue the same mission, he proposes a broader ecosystem of excellence—one that preserves legacy institutions built to accelerate highly prepared students while imagining a new generation of opportunity-focused schools designed to cultivate extraordinary potential. In the collision between excellence and opportunity, perhaps the future of specialized education isn't choosing one over the other, but building enough pathways for both.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 transfer pathways, and performance-based funding tied to completion, the state is assembling many of the policy elements national researchers now recommend.

In this bonus double-sized episode, Corey Alderdice, a national voice on talent and transformation, examines how Arkansas aligns with the Community College Research Center’s five recommendations for dual enrollment policy, where the state’s approach appears especially distinctive, and which challenges remain around advising, equitable access, institutional funding, faculty capacity, and long-term outcomes. This bonus episode asks whether Arkansas can move beyond expanding college credit to become a national model for postsecondary completion.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 transformation, previews Seeing the Whole School, a four-part August series about the interplay between student-proximate work and the broader institutional responsibilities that sustain schools over time. The series explores the Proximity and Purpose Continuum, moving from the work closest to students to the external relationships, public trust, governance, resources, and strategic translation that make school missions possible.

Designed for educators, school leaders, families, board members, alumni, civic partners, and anyone who cares about how schools actually work, this preview invites listeners to begin the year with a wider field of vision. Because no one sees the whole school alone, the new school year offers an opportunity to better understand how care, stewardship, proximity, and purpose connect.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.

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 national voice on talent and transformation, explores how belonging evolved from a relational concept centered on connection and community into a broader cultural flashpoint tied to larger debates around identity, ideology, and institutional values. But rather than abandoning the concept altogether, he argues for a more durable vision of belonging rooted not in conformity or constant affirmation, but in shared purpose, contribution, accountability, and human dignity.

Through reflections on school culture, student flourishing, leadership, and the tension between excellence and connection, this episode asks a timely question: can schools create communities where students remain connected even amid disagreement, challenge, and growth? In an era where many institutions risk becoming increasingly transactional, Alderdice makes the case that belonging still matters deeply — not as institutional theater, but as intentional culture-building that helps students know they matter.

For additional thoughts from Corey, visit coreyalderdice.com.

You can also follow him on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and Threads.