A rising tide lifts all boats. As one of the most popular U.S. states for starting new small businesses, Texas is home to over three million of them. And at Texas State University, there's a group of researchers interested in helping discover and meet the needs of minority business owners in the state. Join us today as we learn about how celebration, resiliency, and partnerships can help both individuals and communities, both researchers and participants, how a rising tide can lift all boats. Welcome to Research Outside of the Box, a podcast for unconventional, unique, and out-of-the-box research happening at Texas State and the innovative research approaches faculty use along the way. I'm your host, Kamarie Carter, training specialist for faculty development. And for today's episode, we have not one, but two guests in the studio, and I'm happy to introduce Dr. Josh Daspit, Associate Professor in the Department of Management, and Jessica Schneider, Director of the Resilience Research Programs in the Translational Health Research Center. Hi, you two. Hello. Hi. Great to be here. Yeah. Thanks for coming. So I'd like to know a little bit about each of you. Let's start with Jessica. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes. So as you mentioned, I am the Director of our Resilience Research Programs in the Translational Health Research Center, THRC for short. Really what that means is that I oversee our Faculty Fellows Research Program. So we work with faculty from across Texas State taking a really multidisciplinary approach to learning more about community health and resilience. My background is in research administration and research development and also technical writing and communication. So I like to work with our faculty to support them in all of these different endeavors. Thanks. Josh, what about you? Yeah. I am an Associate Professor in Management here in the McCoy College of Business. And my area of study is related to entrepreneurship. And specifically, I look at family firms and small businesses. And within those contexts, I examine a number of things including social dynamics, how individuals work together in those contexts, especially with family businesses, are quite interesting. Not only do we have the complexities of running a business, we all have families, and I don't know, there's some complexities in my family. That'd be a whole different podcast. It may be an interesting spin-off. But adding or integrating those family dynamics into the context of a business creates some interesting phenomena and areas of study. Yeah, I imagine. Can you tell us a little bit about the research that you're currently working on? Yes, I'm excited always to talk about research and the projects that I have going on and that we have going on. One of them is called the Scale Up Program. And it complements the work that I do on family businesses and small businesses, and specifically looks at minority businesses. It's quite interesting that the number of minority businesses and minority business owners in the United States and as well as in Texas, the number continues to increase, which makes sense with the population dynamics shifting and whatnot. But the rate at which minority businesses are growing is not increasing. Interesting. So there are some initial studies that have shown that minority businesses generally tend to start small and stay small. S.

There was a recent study and some recent data from the U. Department of Commerce that highlighted the fact that if minority businesses grew at the same rate, they reached that same level as majority businesses, majority-owned businesses. S.

That growth from minority businesses would add over $6 trillion to the U. economy. Oh, wow. $6 trillion. That's a big number. And it would also create well over 20 million new jobs. Oh, wow. And of course, in Texas, as a large state and we have an increasingly large minority population, the economic impact. If we look at this from an economic perspective, the potential there is substantial in terms of potential contributions to our state's economy, as well as to the labor force. So our focus with scale up is to understand, to better understand why minority businesses are not growing at the same rate as other businesses. There's some initial research that's been done. And you can even go online. You can go online and find some resources and programs that are focused on helping minority business owners. But few programs from what we found are evidence-based. In other words, they are developed perhaps by an organization or whatnot with great intentions. But we are focused on making sure that the science is there behind those tools that are delivered to help minority business owners. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So how did you two come to create this project? What did that look like? We started working with Dr.

Daspit last year as a result of scale up. We had learned about his work with scale up. And in THRC, we are really, again, looking at resilience through this really broad interdisciplinary lens. And it's always assuming that health is one of the core features of resilience, right? And so our executive director, Dr.

Melinda Villagran, she has said many times that it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that she realized there really was this really significant connection between health and the economic health of communities. And so we reached out to Dr. Daspit, again, after learning about his work with scale up. And really because we knew working with him would help us better understand some of that economic resilience piece, right? What are the tools? What are the resources? What can we do to help small businesses, minority businesses grow and really contribute to the Texas economy specifically so we have a resilient economy? I would also add that with this initiative in our center, we are looking at, again, economic resilience, economic health, but also trying to understand all of the social, the environmental aspects of health and resilience, the technologies that are required to foster resilience, the infrastructure that's needed. And so I think it's really cool because it's really, it's such a huge broad multidisciplinary lens. There really is a space for anyone and everyone to contribute to this conversation. And again, this is what started this partnership with Dr. Daspit and with scale up was how can we learn more about that economic piece and really infuse his research into some of the stuff that we're doing. Yeah. So it seemed like there was a fairly natural crossover there between your office and the work that you're doing, Josh, right? It seemed like it now, but at the time, to be quite frank, you were like, I know we're being recorded right on a podcast. But hey, here's the truth. I wasn't, I was just not sure that the work that I'm doing on small businesses and from that perspective, I was like, I don't really study community health resilience. Yeah, I can see. I can see that. That kind of like, is this going to fit? Yeah, for the offer, but I'm just not, I wasn't convinced at the time that there were synergies that I was a right fit for what they were trying to achieve and vice versa. So how, how did you get convinced? Have you met Dr.

Melinda Villagran? She is a force of nature and a powerhouse. Will you tell us who Dr. Melinda Villagran is for anybody who's listening who might not know? She's wonderful and you must meet her. She is the executive director of THRC, the Translational Health Research Center, which Jessica's the program director and oversees a number of programs that they are doing. And Melinda does that, a force of nature. She has, gosh, how many, what is the number in terms of grant funding that Melinda has? Oh, I should be able to say this off the top of my head. It's a million. It's impressive, impressive amount. So not only is she capable, and that's an understatement by itself, right? But she is just amazing in her ability to acquire grants and the research she's done. But she has a vision and it is a vision not just for her and her center, but for what the university can be and where the university can go. And she often says, you know, refers to the quote about a rising tide, lifting all boats. And from my experience, she and you, Jessica, the whole center really holds true to that. The work that they do is not just with business faculty. It's with faculty from health and human performance, from engineering, Department of Communications, across the board. And they are investing in research, investing in programs to make them better. Okay, yeah. Which is great. I was like, wait, you all are wanting to help me, you know, scale up at that point was kind of like a startup. We had some initial funding from Frost Bank, and that helped us to hire some research fellows for the first year. And that's all the funding we had. Every penny went to those research fellows. And by partnering with THRC, not only did they help to create more ideas and enhance the ideas that we had, but we were able to develop things like the GRIT Awards, which absolutely would not have been possible without their work and their financial support and their vision. I would add, just, you know, talking about the Dr.

Villegren being big idea, kind of this kind of big visionary, to your point, we kind of talked about this recently, how, you know, you didn't immediately see the connection of your work to, again, community health and resilience. But, you know, within a community, there is a community of businesses, and having, you know, healthy businesses, a healthy local economy is going to result in a healthy community, a healthy and resilient community. And again, I think that's what's so exciting about our programs and THRC is that we're looking for those connections, right? We know everyone has, all of the faculty we work with, they bring their research agenda to us. They have the thing that they're doing, that they're studying. And then it's our job to kind of figure out, like, how does this fit into the bigger picture? What are the connections? How do all of these things kind of feed into this concept of, again, community health and resilience? And, yeah, it's really exciting because, as Dr.

Dasset just said, we have, you know, working with folks from McCoy, from management, from finance, from, you know, communication studies, political science, geography. Like, it's engineering, it's, yeah, it's all over campus, and it's so, I really, the part I love the most about my job is being able to, like, see that big story unfolding. I imagine that's really special to be a part of. Definitely, yeah. Well, can you tell us a little bit about how the Scale Up program works? So, we are in, officially, in year two of the Scale Up program. And, yeah, we're excited to be in the second year. We received some funding from the Kauffman Foundation. We're very excited and pleased to receive that support. And that's allowed us to take the next step in what we're doing. So, the work we did last year now enhanced by the Kauffman Foundation support and THRC is allowing us to rigorously examine those challenges. I will identify and examine those challenges that minority business owners face when trying to grow their business and then develop tools that are evidence-based that we can then give to those business, to share with business owners in a way that is easy to use, easy to understand, and knowing that they have, you know, they're shown to significantly enhance some aspect of growth, right? Maybe that's increasing number of employees becoming more profitable, adding a new product line or a new service growth in some form or fashion. Yeah, so what does that look like? What steps do businesses go through with the Scale Up program or do you go through? What does that look like for maybe somebody who has never heard of Scale Up before? We are working right now to create a systematic process, if you'll call it that, some tools to be able to deliver to businesses, right? As I mentioned, we want an evidence-based approach, but research takes time, you know, research takes time and not everyone sees that vision of what it can be and what it can do. And as far as the program, that's where we are at this time.

So, in fact, on our website, we have a link where business owners and really anyone who's interested in receiving updates about the program, where they can go and fill out a simple form and register.

where they can go and fill out a simple form and register. We send out a newsletter periodically with updates. We share calls for research participants. And we also have opportunities for faculty members on campus, graduate students, anyone who's interested in helping or supporting what we are examining, right? Some aspect of helping us understand those barriers, maybe they have personal experience, maybe they know someone help us, right?

Some aspect of helping us understand those barriers, maybe they have personal experience, maybe they know someone help us, right? Put us in contact, like Melinda's rising tide lifts all boats. We're looking for those relationships, you know, to build those relationships and grow our team. Yeah, so it's kind of a hub of information right now, the website piece at least. Yes, and that's a perfect word to use.

Part of the website is to, and one of the goals is to have a hub where resources are organized in an easy to use way. There's a lot of things out there, right? Once you start to do a Google search and whatnot, but we want to deliver a user friendly interface. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, Jessica, you mentioned something called the grit awards. Can you explain a little bit more about that and how that plays into scale up? Yes, so, you know, I had said earlier that when we work with faculty, we say bring your agenda to us and then we want to think of how can we really amplify that project and that project success. And very significantly for us, how do we get the findings from your work, the results of your work, how do we get that to people who can actually benefit from those findings? So that was one of the really exciting things about working with scale up also because one of their primary initiatives is to first understand the barriers and challenges that these businesses face, but also to create and deliver a solution, right? A hub or a package of services and resources that they can use and access and use. And so in our initial conversations with Dr. Daspit, we were, you know, our first question is like, what can we do to help you? What do you need, right? And I was a little surprised. I was like, well, what's the catch here? Read the fine print. What did I sign? Did I sign something? They're wanting to help me and support and they've got a staff of quite a few people. Yeah. Hold on a second. Yes.

So so one of the things that emerged was just, again, the need to connect with with small businesses, right? Just research participants, people that he could that the scale up could engage and talk to and involved in this in their research process. And so around that time, Dr.

Bill Grant, our executive director, she had participated in this at this competition through the National Institutes of Health. That was looking at institutions that had really increased the number of women and people of color in their in their STEM fields and so or their biomedical sciences. And so that competition was really cool because, again, it was to highlight, you know, success stories and celebrate those success stories, but also to develop this kind of community of of researchers then that could come together and share best practices and learn from each other. And so she proposed this idea of the Grit Awards as a way that we could just connect with small businesses through an awards program. Yeah.

And so I think everyone, myself included, I was immediately like an awards program, like, you know, like, really, this is what this is, you know, how what are we doing? But it was, you know, it took it took us about, I mean, probably about eight months from like start to finish to really roll this this thing out and figure out our approach and what we were going to do. And, you know, I would argue, I would or I would say I was so nervous throughout the process, like, no one's going to apply. And the end result was like nothing we could have imagined, I think. So what are the awards look like? How did how did that process look like? So we just started with a general call for nominations. And what we were asking, again, our focus was small businesses in Texas specifically. And we were asking them to basically, you know, they just submitted a form that was available online to share a brief statement, story, testimony about what they had done during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like hurricanes, tornadoes, any kind of natural disaster or public health emergency. What, you know, what did you do to not just like survive that, but to thrive? Right. And because the great awards are focused on highlighting great resilience.

Yes. Texas. I was going to ask what is it an acronym? Always acronyms at Texas State.

Yes. So yes. Great. We were celebrating great resilience in Texas. OK.

And so we put out this call. We shared the information with chambers across the state with a few organizations, professional organizations, just like a really multifaceted approach to just getting this information out. And then the nomination started rolling in. So we ended up with about 100 nominations.

Yeah, we again, we were just so ecstatic about it. And then we had a process where we used an evaluation process that looked at like preparedness, adaptability, collaboration, these factors that the literature says is art is important to fostering a resilient business. And so we narrowed that that that those initial hundred down to about 30 small businesses and we reached out to them and basically gave them the opportunity to share additional information. They could share photos.

They could share video recordings of themselves. They could share just like more written testimony and just basically give us more details about the things that they did. And people were just so excited and like emotional about it.

Like it was it was that I think was the most not necessarily surprising, but like just really cool piece of this that I think you were. Josh, you said at some point that it's you know, it almost appeared to be like a healing process for people. This reflection. Yeah, I spoke with one business owner who ultimately was a recipient of one of the awards and she said the process of reflecting back of what we as a business and what I had been through during COVID-19 was really therapeutic. She said I had not before this I had not taken some time to reflect on what we did and what we went through and what we overcame as a business. I imagine that providing that space in a way that they haven't thought about before was really impactful to them.

Absolutely. And that was an unexpected we did not set out to write to offer that service right or to help in that way. So that was a bit of an unexpected benefit. What do these businesses get? Is it one of them that's selected? What is kind of the end package that they get? So we we ended up with seven winners actually largely in part because we were just so impressed that it was just like we can't pick. There's no way we can pick one. So yeah, we ended up with three kind of overarching overall.

I think we said it was the overall resilience winners and then we had four kind of subcategories recognizing again those factors that we had been using as part of our evaluation method. So adaptability collaboration like we had trustworthiness and then we had adaptability and collaboration trustworthiness and preparedness was the last one. So yeah, so seven winners and in terms of what they got it was quite impressive because again, I come into this.

So yeah, so seven winners and in terms of what they got it was quite impressive because again, I come into this. There's no way that what am I going to print a certificate? I don't have a budget to offer. What can I offer you?

What can I offer you? And something that's meaningful to a small business owner but THRC once again stepped up and was great. Yeah, we deployed a professional film crew to go visit.

Yeah, we deployed a professional film crew to go visit. I want to also add the winners were from all over the state of Texas. So we had folks in Houston, Sugarland, this area, a few in the Central Texas area and at least two in North Texas. And so anyway, we deployed this film crew and they went out and they interviewed them and shot B roll and all this stuff and then made a amazing video for us that just talked about the grid awards and talked about their resilience and really featured and showcased all of these businesses. So they got, you know, that larger video that was about the program about that, you know, what they had done, but then they also got individual videos that they could use for their own promotional purposes. So they got press. They got press. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Much more valuable than a certificate. So for folks who aren't in this field or maybe not are familiar with this research that y'all are doing and working on together, what makes it out of the box?

So for folks who aren't in this field or maybe not are familiar with this research that y'all are doing and working on together, what makes it out of the box? A few things. One is the partnership that we've developed. Like across the university.

Across the university. It's not something, you know, the grid awards and the other research questions that have come up. The data we've collected, the participants, the business owners that we've reached, I would not have been able to reach myself. Even our scale up team would not have been able to reach business owners across the state of Texas and develop relationships of that quality in that amount of time.

Yeah. That was, yeah, you said it was about eight months that you developed it. I mean, that that's fairly quick for a whole new awards program that statewide that that's amazing. It is.

And again, without their support, that would have been an idea, but not something that we would have been able to actually bring to fruition. So now we've been through year one and looking forward to year two to continue to engage and highlight the winners from last year and involve them in the process and continue to learn from them because there were some great nuggets, if you will, some great points that were highlighted in the awards ceremony that we had. Each of the business owners was able to speak for a few moments and there were quite a few.

Yeah, we are actually in the process of, it was really incredible, actually, and very unique. Each business owner talked about their resilience and, you know, again, in such a, not just unique way, but each like contributing something very distinctive to this conversation. And so we are actually in the process of, we've transcribed those, the video so we can collect all of the amazing things that they said. And we're hoping to, you know, put it into some kind of report or something that we can share and disseminate just to like really, again, share this. And anyone who wants to watch the Grit Awards Showcase, which was kind of the big awards ceremony, if you will. That was in April. That is also on our YouTube. You know, you can hear all of the things that they say there, but yeah, we want to pull out those amazing nuggets and really share those with folks because I think that any small business owner, certainly, and then perhaps all of us actually can learn from the things that they shared with us on that day. That's amazing.

Yeah. So you're saying, yeah, that collaboration piece and what it has produced has been really unique for your experience, correct? And that type of, this type of collaboration.

So often as faculty, I don't want to speak on behalf of every faculty member, of course, but we have a tendency to feel a bit isolated. You know, you're in your office doing your work day after day or in your lab doing your work and we forget or don't even realize the resources that are literally just down the hallway or in the next building that can take our research to a whole new level. And, you know, earlier when I mentioned that Melinda's phrase about a rising tide lifts all boats, that's exactly what THRC has done for Scale Up for the work we're doing and so many other programs on campus. I was a little skeptical.

I was like, what's the catch here? But it generally is to help elevate those interesting projects across Texas State University that have the potential to make a greater impact, reach more individuals with additional support. So how lucky are we as a university to have a resource like that? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, Jessica. Yeah, I would add, again, an awards program. I mean, that to me, that is so innovative. And talk about thinking outside the box, you know, I mean, again, even within our own kind of team, you know, the immediate thought is like, well, how is that we're doing this, this is what we're doing. Okay.

Okay. And so I think, again, just a very, it's a, this was a very unique way of thinking about how to connect with the people who our research is supposed to benefit. And the result of that has, you know, you know, we didn't just do this award ceremony. Now we're walking away. Also, you know, this was an opportunity for us to connect with these business owners. And now we move into fostering that relationship and figuring out how can we involve them? Like, you know, what, you know, what are the problems that they, you know, they are living in this, you know, in doing this work, right? How, what are their experiences?

How, what are their experiences? What can we learn from them? What are the problems or the barriers that they face? It's really, in my mind, about, you know, hearing from your participants, right, and letting their feedback guide the next steps. Yeah, they're helping you to help, yeah, to help them and people like them and businesses like them. Yeah, that's amazing. It's a very, it's a innovative, creative way to develop a sample, if you will, of research participants. Absolutely.

Like you created a whole other program for that purpose, and it exceeded your expectations. Oh, I love that. And it continues to grow each year. Yeah, it's not a one and done thing. It has now been entwined into what you're doing. The rest of our planning, right? Yeah, as we plan for this year, our different activities. This is, again, this, this network that we have established that we can come back to, that we can involve, that we can foster. And that is, you know, everyone has received a survey in the mail at some point asking them to, you know, complete, complete this. But if that's coming from somebody that you know, and you trust and that you've had a conversation with, or that you've engaged with in some way, you know, you're a lot more likely to give that feedback. Yeah, so it's about creating meaningful relationships at the end of the day.

You know that, in my view, I mean, that's what underlies our successful partnership. Working with you, Jessica, individually has been a lot of fun.

I mean, just before this, we're laughing and, you know, each other's company, hopefully all that wasn't recorded. But we have built a meaningful relationship between the programs and are developing and have developed some with those small business owners and whatnot.

But we have built a meaningful relationship between the programs and are developing and have developed some with those small business owners and whatnot. And that's really at the core of what we're trying to do. Because it was really important to us because it happens with every bit of research or program. What obstacles came up during the creation of the grit program or maybe the scale up program, and how did you overcome them? Would you like to start with grit, Jessica?

That was, I mean, we were creating something from nothing. So where do we start? And it was, you didn't expect to do that. That wasn't a part of the initial scale up program agenda. That was just birthed out of thin air almost. Even when we agree to work together early on, it wasn't an agreement that we're going to develop an awards program to do. It started with a conversation of, okay, let's talk about the goals of the scale up program. And they actually asked the same question that you just did. Well, what challenges do you all have? Well, it's a challenge to find and be able to communicate with small business owners from across the state, right?

Well, it's a challenge to find and be able to communicate with small business owners from across the state, right? To do, to be able to understand their challenges. Yeah, we can send them a paper survey or send them an online survey, but we need some qualitative data. You know, we need interviews. We need to really get down deep and understand not just what the problems are, but what's underlying the problems that we can help. Or so that we can help address them.

So how to start well was even a challenge. Absolutely. And so from those conversations with Jessica, Melinda and team, that's ultimately where the grid awards came from. I think for me anyway, the biggest challenge was just, you know, we had kind of an overarching idea and like the steps that we would take.

I think for me anyway, the biggest challenge was just, you know, we had kind of an overarching idea and like the steps that we would take. But then, I mean, you know, to be honest, we were figuring it out as we went a little bit. Who doesn't do that?

Who doesn't do that? Yes, I mean, I think that's perfectly normal. Just like a startup. Yeah, definitely. Yes. And so, you know, I would say like, just like the timing of things, just everything took longer than I had in my mind. You know, I think initially we were like, we will have these announced before the holiday, early December. And then it was quickly like that is not possible.

So so there we had to have kind of a willingness to be flexible, to be resilient, if you will. Right. And adjust along the way to make sure that we were doing this as effectively as we as we could. And and I would then add that really, we have a really great roadmap now if to do if, you know, if we decide to do this again. So I think that was it again, like kind of underestimating what was going to go into this. Did you use students in either the program or the scale up research? Do you use students in that? For from the scale up side.

Yes. Okay. So we have an individual who started as a student graduated, but we've he's been a valuable asset to the scale up team and now as an associate research fellow with us working on his MBA at another university. But started, you know, had that initial interest as an undergraduate student.

And we have some other individuals who are working in different capacities, graduate students and whatnot. And also let me remind, you know, share the information that if there are any students who happen to hear the podcast or faculty members that have an interest in just exploring possibilities of working with scale up. We are very open to that.

Absolutely. Official line is official funds designated for research fellow positions. But we also need, for example, consultants to help develop educational aspects, those tools.

So we'll probably need some faculty for that have expertise in education and curriculum development and how to develop online tools. I don't know how to do all those things. Shameless plug. Yeah. Come on, everybody. Yeah. It's it's a need that we have and a challenge that we're facing. And I can see that's going to be on the horizon to finding good quality individuals that can support what we're wanting to do and who also have a passion for. Great.

That's awesome. Yeah, we have quite a few students that work across our different projects, most of them assigned again with with those faculty fellows projects, right, who are working with fellows and on their individual research projects. And then within TRC, we do have a couple of doctoral research assistants who are amazing and who just are constantly amazing me with their ideas and and just skills that they bring to the table. And then a couple of master's students as well. Graduate students for grit. We did. We actually it was pretty much mostly as we have. We had a couple other staff members who had jumped on. And in retrospect, we will definitely bring we were more than happy to have students involved in this in the future.

And I would also add, we are always looking for students who, you know, teachers, the translational health research. We at the core of that is, again, that translational piece, like moving research from, you know, I think they say the bench to the bedside is the term that's often used there, getting it to people. And so communication is at the core of that. So we're always interested in having students who who can write, who can interview, who can go out and take just photos of these projects, you know. So anyone who is interested in working with us, please reach out.

We are. Yeah, it sounds like a really good opportunity. And they're positions for and opportunities for faculty as well. Correct. So with the fellows program specifically.

Yes. So our fellows program this this previous year was our first year for the fellows program. And we had eight faculty members participating across again, representing almost all colleges. Texas State.

We are moving into our second year. And we make those decisions usually late spring, early summer is when we select the fellows. What I always tell folks, you know, it's not like a go to this link and submit your application kind of process.

This is really about relationship building, going to events on campus. There are, you know, faculty development hosts events. We host events. We have a health and resilience research network group that we launched this previous year where we'll have at least a couple of meetings each semester, bring in our fellows to talk on some again, like from very distinct perspectives, but talking on a common theme. Dr. Dasbitt was one of our speakers in the spring at one of those events. We also have our huge event each year is the health scholar showcase that happens every spring. And that's, you know, faculty from across campus can submit posters and talk about their research and talk to each other. I mean, it's a really great form to meet other faculty on campus, but also for us to get to know what are you doing? You know, we again have this very broad health and resilience mission. And the first step, if you want to eventually become a faculty fellow or just work with us in some capacity, get to know us, like help us get to know you. That's that's the most important takeaway that I would leave with folks today. That's great. I have a feeling you're gonna have a gigantic attendance at some events next year. I hope so. That's the hope. I hope so. Those are great opportunities. That's exactly right. It's a great opportunity and a great team to work with. As I mentioned, we have fun. And it makes the work fun. Work should be fun. And we care about what we do, which is I think also we really believe in the mission of our center. I know you believe in the work that you're doing. And so, yeah, it's fun to work with people when you're kind of united around a common cause. Definitely. So one of the last questions that I would like to leave with is what advice do you have for other researchers who are wanting to think outside of the box regarding their research? I would say do just that.

Think outside of the box that you are in, almost literally, right? Get outside of your cup. I sometimes joke, you know, students will come by and ask, oh, hey, where's this building or that building? Listen, I need to get out of McCoy more often. I'll go with you. I'll find out with you. Yeah, right.

But without having gone to events and met Jessica and having known Melinda and whatnot, these relationships wouldn't have been formed. It wouldn't have been started.

It wouldn't have been started. So research is obviously important and I know we all want to hit our deadlines and whatnot. But sometimes I find myself becoming so consumed with this part of a project or writing this part of a paper or collecting this data or analyzing these data that I don't take time to step back and really think what resources are on campus to help me with some aspect of this. I know faculty development, right?

I know faculty development, right? The office that the jury affiliate with, geez, that has been a fantastic resource. Not just from the conversations that Candace and I have had kind of off to the side, but the formal programming that you all offer. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you. And it's helped me meet individuals who are not in McCoy.

How would I have met them otherwise? It's easy to become so comfortable with your own office space, your own building and your routine. And then take a work, leave, teach class, you know whatnot.

So stepping outside of literally your building and attending some of those sessions. Personally, this isn't directly related to that, but you know, every semester I have a goal of attending at least two professional development slash teaching workshops. Sometimes I attend more.

Sometimes I barely make two, but to have at least those two on the calendar, right? I look at the, you know, you all typically send out a list at the beginning of the semester with the highlights of what's going to be happening in the fall or the spring or over the summer. So I do my best to schedule those in.

Otherwise get caught up in the routine and the semester has gone by and haven't done them. And being open to seeing those opportunities.

I teach this in entrepreneurship, intro to entrepreneurship, tell students a good entrepreneur is able to recognize opportunities when they encounter them. I would add also just after years and years and years of working with faculty, particularly in the grant space, right? External funding space.

You know, I think people often get very, you know, zeroed in on this, you know, I got to publish this article, move on, finish this project, move on to the next thing. And that's important, certainly for various reasons.

But I think that thinking about, you know, talking to people who are outside of your field, talking to people who would potentially be your, who are your research participants. But also, again, the people that your work is going to affect in some capacity. It's important for multiple reasons, I would argue, because again, why are you doing the work if it's not going to get to someone that it will benefit? But also, it can help you ask new, like it can reveal new questions, it can reveal new insights and that can help actually guide your the progression of your of your research path or agenda. And then if you are interested in external funding specifically, you know, there might be the thing you want to do and the lanes that you have kind of drawn for yourself, right? But a sponsor, whoever they that may be, whether it's a private entity or a government entity or whatever, you know, they have an agenda, they have an emission. And so it's super important to think about, you know, what is not only the project I'm trying to do, but like, what is my expertise? What is the thing that I bring to the table? And how can I plug that into different types of projects or different types of collaborations to address these, you know, bigger issues or problems or whatever? So I think it really is a willingness to just be open minded and think about the possibilities with our fellows. One of the things that I know people struggle with because we say send us a proposal and share a budget and people are so kind of conditioned to think very like, you know, how it's point A to point B, right? But we're telling people think big, like, if you had the support to do whatever you wanted, what would that look like? Now we're not promising that we're gonna make that happen exactly. But, you know, we want you thinking in that direction. What is the potential impact of this project? How can it benefit society? How can it improve people's lives? You know, and then what are the steps we can start taking to get you there? I think that's great advice. Both of you. Really great advice. Thank you. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about that we feel like we haven't covered yet? I'll highlight again the opportunities that we have specifically with Scale Up. So anyone who may be interested can visit scaleup.txst.edu. My contact information is on the site.

They can register to receive updates. And I would ask they also share it with any student who may be interested and any business owner have them register as well. Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you both so much. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you, Josh. It's been a great interview. I really appreciate your time. And you two are also just really fun. So I've had a good time. Thank you. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been a good time. Thank you very much. Well, everybody, this is the last episode of this semester's short series, Research Outside of the Box. We are so glad you joined us on this eight episode journey. On behalf of Faculty Development, I want to thank you for your time, support and dedication as listeners. We truly hope you enjoyed this series and learned as much as we did. This podcast project is sponsored by Faculty Development using YouStar Studios at Alkek One on the Hill in the bright and beautiful San Marcos, Texas. Thank you to the amazing faculty who joined us in this project and who are making amazing strides in your research. As always, we hope you stay curious and dare to research outside of the box.