VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I speak with Joe Cross, a former Illini basketball player who will not forget his PhD in education policy organization and leadership in Illinois, about his new role as academic skills specialist at AHS.

Joe, tell me about what led you to Illinois as a student.

JOE CROSS: Sure. Back in 1998, I was, I was playing basketball at Florida International University, down in Miami, Florida. And I had previous communications with the coach then here, Lon Kruger, who's now the head coach at Oklahoma University.

And so had communications with him and his coaching staff. A good friend of mine, Robert McCullum, who's his assistant coach, who's now at FAMU, know they're good friends of the family. He had heard about what I was doing at FIU. When he was at Florida, he had recruited me there.

When he got to the University of Illinois, he just thought it would be a good fit for me to be back at home. And I reached out to him, my family. And we thought it would be a better fit than where I was at, although I was having a great time in Miami. I knew here would put me in a position to be successful, not so much on the court, as far as going to the NBA or something like that, but does in my off the court, my career, things like that.

And so he recruited me to come in 1998, the fall, really the spring, start of the spring semester of 99, really. And that's when I started, and that's what brought me to Illinois, just the relationships that I had with that coaching staff, and my desire to play at the high level division 1 basketball.

And so, I like, sport management was my major there at FIU, that I was looking to go into. And I knew they had a sport major, sport management major here. It was leisure studies, really, at the time. The program was called leisure studies.

so it was like a-- it was really a easy fit. I knew the majority of the players, Sergio McClain, Marcus Griffin, Robert Archibald, Brian Cook. You know, I kind of knew all those guys, Victor

And it was just really, I felt like they were my family already. So that's kind of how I got here to Illinois. And I've been here ever since.

VINCE LARA: Wow. You mentioned your undergrad in sport management. I'm wondering, you transition to working with students. I wonder why you decided to do that.

JOE CROSS: Well, like most students, you know, after that undergrad degree with sport management, I just knew I had to you know, most of my jobs in high school were internships, working at, our summer jobs where we have YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, that type of thing.

And so when I got done with undergrad, I knew I was going to somehow transition into it. Really, Terry Cole, the former assistant athletic director, he had done a lot of work at the Boys and Girls Club, Boys and Girls Club here. And he was just like, Joe, I think this would be a awesome fit.

And I did some summer internships or experiences with Boys and Girls Club, as a community service stuff, and things like that. However, my the director of Academic Services at the time was Tom, who was my academic advisor too, I saw what he did as an academic advisor, and for the athletic department. And I was just, I was in awe of just the type of impact that he was making with all the athletes, you know, and how he just mentored. Because he played here at the University of Illinois at the time as well during the early 90s.

And so I saw him, how he mentors students and in the classroom, but not only in the classroom, in their sports, basketball, or track, or whatever, wrestling, and how he was just a mentor to them. And so I wanted to do-- although Boys and Girls Club was great, and I wanted to be a mentor for the kids in the community, and the YMCA and things like that.

Joe DeLucia is over the parks Champaign Parks and Rec here. And so I was good friends with him, and did some work with him, community work with him. And so I had different avenues I could go into. But this piece that working with the student athletes, and being a sort of counselor, advisor, mentor, that really intrigued me.

And so I really talked to Tim Heichel about that. And he really started me on the path to being an academic advisor, and with DIA, Intercollegiate Athletics. And I actually loved my experiences there. And I did that for seven years. I was over football for a few years, working with under Ron Zook and his staff.

And so I got some really the experiences working with a variety of teams, softball and baseball and track and gymnastics and those types of areas. And I had an awesome time with that.

Well that led me over to the College of Education, where I was an academic advisor, and also working on Ph.D work, there in EPO, Education Policy Organization leadership.

And so a good friend of my, mentor, Dr. James Anderson, and Dr. Chris and Dr. Bill Trent and those guys is really who have been mentors since I've been here the University of Illinois, and they got me over there working in advising. And I finished the PhD program over there, which in turn kind of brought me full circle. I did a postdoc in IGB Institute for Genomic Biology, and on their outreach team there, working with the community and getting the community K through 12 students interested in STEM fields and things like that, and worked working with a guy, Bruce Fouke, Dr. Bruce Fouke over at IGB.

And once this position opened up in applied sciences, working with the IGB program, I knew Mannie Jackson. I know him. And there's been an alum of the university, and knew his vision for the program. And once I found out who was over it, and April Carter, just the relationship, really just, you know, just, you know, it was just a good fit for me. Again, so I was really, really appreciative.

VINCE LARA: You mentioned, iLeap. And you know, the campus in general, UIUC, it's one of the most diverse in the country, might be the most diverse. And I wonder, what does the university do well to attract students of color, in your opinion?

JOE CROSS: Sure. I mean, what attracts things of color is the faculty of color, is the people in leadership positions of color. Reg, Dr. Reggie Austin-- and I mean, I've known him for quite some time. So when you can see people that look like you, talk like you, act like you, walk like you, think like you, process, you know, things like you, problem solve like you, can relate to your situation, you get drawn in.

It's not any rocket science. You know, historically black colleges and universities get the numbers that they get, and they attract the people who they attract, is because they can say hey, you know, I come from where you come from. I think like you think. I understand how you process things. And this is how I made it out of my situation, or this is how I'm able to further my situation, and whether if it's a great situation.

And so U of I does an awesome job in this, especially with our students. We see we see that because they can come right into our university and have a family right away, and to see people interact with people that come from similar backgrounds. And I think applied sciences sizes does a great job in doing that, and showing our students that balance and diversity.

VINCE LARA: Now what do you see your role at iLeap being?

JOE CROSS: Sure. Our basic role is to help students be successful in their academic experiences here while in college and at the university. I mean that's what Mannie L. Jackson want this to be, where he had a place to come. And even though maybe were the university didn't look all like him.

He was one of very few, and the only, you know, one of the only black athletes on his team, basketball players, he saw, he found a home, you know, at this college. And he talks very highly of about college. And so that's what I want to make every student that's a first generation student does.

You know, African-American, Latino, you know, those types of students, whether you have underrepresented in whatever area, I want to make sure that you're comfortable in this space whenever you come in, that this is a safe haven for you, that you can get the resources that you need, get the help that you need, the assistance that you need, in order to continue to be here at the university.

We have so many students that are going through so many different things. They just need to know I can come to a place where I feel safe, I feel respected, and I know that I can get the answer to my question, or they can lead me directly to the answer to my questions.

VINCE LARA: Now as a former athlete yourself, you were in leisure sciences, as you said, what they called AHS back then. And AHS has a reputation for drawing a lot of students a lot of student athletes, Reggie Corbin, for example, Oluwole Betiku, right, guys who have spoken really highly of the RST program in general. What do you think is the pipeline that helps that, keep that going?

JOE CROSS: Well, their main interest is sport. And so that was the common interest. As a kid, I didn't grow up knowing about sport management. Oh, I want to go into sport management as a major. No, I didn't. I didn't know about the major at all. You know, not until I got to college and I started messing around with different genetics, and then I found out-- I went, wait, what is sport management? What is it all about?

And so I think that they're attractive because it's right up their alley. I mean, anytime that you can talk, if your sports minded person, and you're talking about sports the majority of the time-- you know, but a lot of people didn't understand. You, you know, sport management deals a lot with-- the management is the business yeah part of it.

And that's really intriguing to a lot of students, because sports is a business, especially now that we're moving into an age where see that these are, you know, maybe able to get paid for their likeness, you know, pretty soon. I mean, it's a business to them. They have to market themselves.

VINCE LARA: For sure.

JOE CROSS: And sport management is a wonderful, gives you the background, wonderful background and intellect into that area. So I'm even, now that know that the, sports has gone into a different era, into a different genre, I think that this next generation of student will even look more favorably upon sport management. Because you know, it's a business.

VINCE LARA: Now what do you see, what's your role post graduation for these students? Like, how much can you follow them, and what does that outreach look like?

JOE CROSS: Sure. I mean, of course you want to stay with the students as much as you can, to help them into their career. My position right now is just to, in this area, just to make sure that they have the best experience possible while they're here in college, with our students, whether they're the athletes, not athletes, because we do have non-athletes in the iLeap program.

It's really just to, you know, for first and second year students, to make sure that they have a good footing, a good foundation, you know, while they're here.

Of course, yes, I've only been here for a short time. And I want to make those relationships and build those relationships, where you know, whoever is working with the Bulls, or whoever's working with the Blues, you know, Dallas, or whoever's working with whomever over at Indy, the Colts or whatever, we can still stay in that communication. Or if they're in the medical field, there's some type of way.

Or they're out with the community, solving some pretty big health issues, that I could be working with them as well.

I just got here. So I would love to broaden that, and help those students when they graduate.

VINCE LARA: What do you, you've said you, you've only been here a short time. But what's your favorite part of the job so far?

JOE CROSS: The interaction with the students.

VINCE LARA: Yeah.

JOE CROSS: Oh man. I mean, I come from-- I miss that. For the two last two years, I was able to publish some writings and things like that while I was working on my postdoc. But I had little to no interaction with the students.

And that's immediately what I found like, man, that makes my day. On students just, you build that relationship with students. And they can come in and out of your office. The door is always open. And they just drop by. Just, you know, just saying hello. You know, just so many students, it's the first day of classes today.

So many students have come by, just say what's up, Joe? How are you doing? Happy New Year. This is what I did during break. You know, so, so much fun. Or I'm so glad to be back. I hated being at home. I'm so glad to be back in my own apartment, you know, in my own bed, you know, and stuff like that. Just hearing those stories, and they're ready for the semester to start.

You know, that's really what I really enjoy.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to today's guest, Joe Cross. For more episodes of A Few Minutes With, please go to iHeart Radio, Spotify, iTunes, by Buzzsprout, and other places where you can hear podcasts, and search A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I'll speak with Charles Stephens, Director of Career Services for AHS about his new role at the college, passion for working with students, and helping students develop an identity.

All right, Charles, thank you for being on A Few Minutes With. You got your master's and undergrad at Michigan State, a Big 10 rival of Illinois. And you grew up in the greater Detroit area. So what led you to this fine institution?

CHARLES STEPHENS: Vince, thanks for having me, number one.

VINCE LARA: Sure, you bet.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Number two, rival? Is that a thing? So Michigan State, we're good at football and basketball. I don't really think we are rivals in that sense. But it's all Big 10 love anyway. But I'm happy to be here.

So I grew up in the greater Detroit area. It's the town known as Southfield, which is right across the street from Detroit. So have you've seen the movie 8 Mile?

VINCE LARA: Yes.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So it's a real road that basically separates the city from the suburbs. It's kind of a metaphor that Eminem was playing on when he did it.

VINCE LARA: Right.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So I grew up on Nine Mile, which is where Southfield is. And then anything below Eight Mile, Seven and below would be considered Detroit area. So as far as what led me to Illinois, my wife and I both came from Massachusetts. So when you're in higher ed, a lot of times the way to move up is to move out. And so we came here as a family from Massachusetts.

My wife works in student affairs. And she's one of the associate vice chancellors there. And so when she got the job first, luckily this search was open. And I was fortunate enough to find a great fit working here in AHS. This position is something that I've done in my previous role, establish a career development office for a school or college the size of roughly 2,000 students. So it was a great fit for me when I saw this opportunity.

VINCE LARA: Now, you mentioned working with students and with young people in general. And that seems to be a career theme for you.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Absolutely.

VINCE LARA: And I wondered what led you to that field. What was the inspiration for that?

CHARLES STEPHENS: Some people would like to call it planned happenstance. So when I was at Michigan State, when I got there, first, I always knew that I was going to college. But I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there.

So luckily I paid attention to a pre-college program. It was from the College of Business, Summer Business Institute, where I got to spend a week before school started with 50 other students or 49 other students, learning how to be a student, but then also doing a project where we're researching a company. So that was a great introduction to college life for me. That's where I learned that in order to be successful, you have to be involved.

There's benefits in terms of your professional and personal benefits to getting involved. But then also it connects you to campus. You start to learn the resources. You start to be engaged. You start to develop the spirit. So it got me down the path to being involved.

And so while I figured I'd work in business, I wanted to make money. I figured business was the way to make money. But all the while, as I was going through my career in undergrad, I was heavily involved. I was a student leader of the black caucus. I was involved with the BSA. I was involved in multicultural business students. I was involved in a whole bunch of different things like the programming board for campus.

But all the while I had mentors and advisors who were recognizing that I was thriving on the campus environment. And they were trying to push me into student affairs. But I moved away from it because there was no money in it. So ultimately I graduated, worked for about three years in corporate. But then the financial crisis hit me personally. So I was unemployed for a longer period of time.

It just so happened that I was on a prepaid vacation with the dean of the College of Business. I had some talk time with him while we were sitting on the beach. And we started talking about my career and what he saw as a good pathway for me. And so he recommended that I take a look at higher ed. And so I did that.

So in the time of me finding a temporary gig at the Bank of New York Mellon, that wasn't fulfilling for me. But then this process of going through the master's process to becoming a student affairs professional was more appealing. And luckily I got into Michigan State for their program, which at the time was fourth in the nation.

So I just lucked up to get in there. So the work that I had done to put myself in the position to have that conversation with the assistant dean of students on the beach randomly put me in a position to set the positive career trajectory that I'm on right now. So for me, I'm not intimidated to spreadsheets. But I don't love spreadsheets.

But I do love interacting with people. And I do love helping people. And so that's how I ended up in this field. And this is where I'm really glad to be here.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, here you are. And now part of what you do is you're focused on helping students develop an identity. So when I saw that as part of your bio, it really caught me. And I was wondering if you could explain what that means.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Absolutely. But in order to do that, let me ask you a question first. Can you remember, think back as far as you can remember the first time you were asked what do you want to be when you grew up?

VINCE LARA: Yeah, I was probably nine years old or something.

CHARLES STEPHENS: All right. So what did you say?

VINCE LARA: Baseball player.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Baseball player? That's awesome.

VINCE LARA: Yeah.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Yeah, so me, it was a pirate. Oh. Not at nine, but earlier. So that's something that we always do, do that to our young people. We say, as soon as they start talking, we ask them, what do you want to be when you grow up? And that's a really difficult question that we ask and a lot of pressure we put on our young people, when in reality, statistics shows you change jobs and maybe even careers multiple times throughout your lifespan.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

CHARLES STEPHENS: A lot of people who are successful in areas today weren't doing that job before. And then also we know as employment trends shift, the jobs of today will be different 10, 20 years later.

VINCE LARA: For sure.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So for me, I think it would be awesome instead of asking our kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? who do you want to be when you grow up? I think that's more important to figure that out because an individual has different talents and abilities and skill sets. But to try to limit and pigeonhole those into a career choice, which may not be the career choice that they will follow once they're done.

Or it may not be the consistent one that they'll have over their lifespan. It's more important to figure out who they are as an individual than what they would like to do. So one other thing that we often do when we meet people, we'll introduce ourselves and we'll say, hi, my name is. And they'll respond. And then the next question is what?

VINCE LARA: What do you do?

CHARLES STEPHENS: What do you do? Exactly. So what we do is a very central part of who we are. And so figuring that out I think is the most important thing, not necessarily what you do, but who you are. And so that's part of the process that I bring to the career development process.

So whenever I'm having that conversation with a student, we're trying to get at who they are as an individual and how that professional identity is congruent with their personal identity so that they can be a fully self-actualized person when it comes to their personal and career goals.

VINCE LARA: So I'll put the next two questions together. So what does a typical workday look like for you? And in that, I'm asking you, how or what are some of the ways you help students? Does a student come into you and you have that similar conversation we just had and then you help shape what their identity should look like or what you were hoping it looks like? Tell me a little bit about what that process is.

CHARLES STEPHENS: The process a little bit more subtle.

VINCE LARA: OK.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So I think a lot of times when students seek out assistance, it's one thing. They either need a resume or they need a cover letter or they need someone to review their personal statement or something like that. But I think the best conversations that we've had when it comes to students were when they come in with a personal statement. And a lot of times the student will start listing off their accomplishments. And they'll be very statistics driven.

But it's my job to probe into the why, try to get those unique experiences out of them that make up who they are and then help them to put that on paper. How do they represent their full selves in the process? So anyone who's reviewing a personal statement, you get bored seeing the cookie-cutter student coming across your desk.

But when you see a student who has fully thought through what their goals are, who they are as a person, how their experiences have shaped them to be the person that they are today, and why this program is important for them, then that makes a better conversation, or at least a better document to read and review.

So students, like I said before, they'll come to me for needing to check off a box professionally. But then the conversation will take a turn, may or may not. Sometimes it's just transactional, like I really need to get in and out.

But I want to see who they are. So I view myself as another touchpoint. I think where my office is situated is really important, being under undergraduate affairs. It's a part of the touchpoint in terms of retention, so helping students to make sure that they got what they need to be successful. And a lot of times, as you know, we know their career is important, is an integral part in that.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So you asked about what a typical day looks like.

VINCE LARA: Yeah.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Still trying to figure that out.

VINCE LARA: OK.

CHARLES STEPHENS: So you come in the office. You maybe have a plan to execute certain tasks and things like that. But then a student may drop in. Or I'll see a student or some other fire needs to get put out. Or it's even maybe going across campus, meeting with the other career services, council folks, trying to learn what their best practices are, what are some things we could bring in here, doing research on what are the latest trends that are happening across the country and how can we integrate that into the AHS career development portfolio.

So there is a lot of thinking right now. But as we continue to move through, you're going to start to see more programs. You're going to start to see more things. We're really excited that we're going to start to buy in a handshake, which is the university's job portal. From my conversation with students over the previous semester, they are familiar with it. But they don't view it as a tool that's helpful for AHS, primarily because a lot of the job opportunities that they see aren't necessarily catered to those majors.

VINCE LARA: OK.

CHARLES STEPHENS: Or at least there aren't enough to make it a critical significance for them. But now we're going to start really investing into it. So this is the first time that the college has had someone to take on that mantle. And so I'm excited to do that. I think the tool is great. It's a great way for students to grow their own network on their own, but then also for us to facilitate that process and then also to help them to find jobs and opportunities as well.

VINCE LARA: Do you find that there's one class that sees you more often than another, like freshmen come to see you more often because they're learning about campus and needing more help? Or do you find that it's more juniors and seniors? What's the breakdown, do you know?

CHARLES STEPHENS: Can't really identify a pure breakdown. It's been a mix so far. So as you mentioned, first year students who were instructed to complete a resume, their first resume ever, have seen me.

As I mentioned before, there was a lot of juniors and seniors who've come through with their personal statements or start to think about they're on the cusp of graduating or they're in their final year, how to get the most out of their year, how to start the job search. What are some strategies that they could use to help them with that?

Some students are looking at their major and starting to think about, OK, well, what's the salary for this major? What should I really be asking for whenever they ask that question in an interview? So we'll provide them with those data and any other thing that they need to help them make their decision about their career choices.

VINCE LARA: And do you work with students beyond graduation?

CHARLES STEPHENS: Absolutely. So I think a lot of times people just view career development in terms of services. So although if the department is called, or the office rather, is called AHS Career Services, I don't take it as a service standpoint.

As I mentioned before, you change jobs over the lifespan. You change careers over the lifespan. You need guidance and support over the lifespan. I think of it more of as a developmental process.

And so I think we're best served if we engage alumni, particularly young alumni, and then alumni who are established who want to come back to reach back to students, to tell their story, to help our students to develop their alumni story. And so, yes, to answer your question, yes. I work with anyone who is affiliated with AHS who would need any sort of assistance or who would love to engage with our students from a career standpoint.

You can't take it in an isolated bucket. So a recruiter looking for an entry-level position would turn to us and handshake to find new graduates. However, we should be a good point of contact for them if they're looking to fill a more intermediate or second position as well. So that's where our young alumni pipeline really comes in.

So I know I'll be working with Danielle Runyon on trying to bolster that relationship between Undergraduate Affairs and Career Development with alumni and advancement. So we're really excited about the opportunities that are on the horizon.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Charles Stephens. This has been A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: Hello. This is Vince Lara, Media Relations Specialist in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I'll spend five minutes with Matt Browning, Assistant Professor in the Recreation, Sport, and Tourism unit of AHS. All right, Matt. Your dad taught physics, so did you always imagine yourself teaching?

MATT BROWNING: I did. I actually got a teaching certificate for middle grade science because I thought I was going to work with children. I love playing with children. I love teaching children. And I went down that route, but then I actually got in what's called an environmental education degree and a job in environmental education as I was interning at this middle school.

And this was sort of a dream job. It was actually a park ranger job, where I was out working in natural environment, but then also teaching children about nature. And I couldn't turn that down. It was harder to get a park ranger job than a job in public school. So I went in a different direction.

But then I was able to return back to teaching in higher education. When I was a park ranger I got very interested in research. And so I went down this track of graduate school, getting my master's and my PhD, and was lucky enough to get an academic job. And so to answer your question, yes, but it's changed in terms of age demographics.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. You got your undergrad from Oberlin in biology. Did you initially want to be an MD? Was that where you were going with that?

MATT BROWNING: Yeah, so the short answer again is no. I think I've shifted, like a lot of people have. And I think that's the beauty of being in a place like a College of Applied Health Sciences. People have come from a lot of different backgrounds because they care about health and well-being. And there's a lot of different facets to it.

So when I got a degree in biology, I, again, was sort of interested in the natural world. How the natural works. I remember my favorite class there was on vertebrate structure and evolution. So we dissected all these bizarre creatures and we learned about their anatomy. And so, no, I certainly didn't think that would lead to a PhD, but I'm glad it had.

And so, again, two sides of the same coin. To move way back, how did I get interested in this field? And then in the first place, it was really my parents, I think, taking us out in the woods, going backpacking, canoeing. And I actually was lucky enough to grow up on 20 acres of woodlands. And every spring we'd go morel hunting. I'd build forts out in the woods. Go sledding all the time. And I think those early childhood experiences in nature really built that connection to nature that led to what I'm doing.

VINCE LARA: You made the connection as an outdoors person to trying to work in more of a virtual environment.

MATT BROWNING: Excellent question. And there is some concern about just using simulations of nature. Because I want people to get outside. I don't want to replace the real thing. So there's a couple of things. One is I also love technology. And so it's an opportunity sort of use skill sets and interests in multiple fields.

And the other thing is, a lot of people don't have the experience that I did growing up. They didn't grow up in the woodlands. They didn't have parents that had the skill set or the comfort level to take them outside. And so having these various immersive simulations of nature are great for people that maybe are transitioning into more of an outdoor recreation hobby or people that don't have any outdoors where they live. They live in a nature-poor city area. Or maybe they have some physical limitation where it's very hard to get out of the house. This sort of thing. So I'm glad that I'm pursuing this route because I think there's a need for it.

VINCE LARA: What are you most excited about in the upcoming year in terms of what you're teaching?

MATT BROWNING: Very good. Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. So I developed this online class. It's an eight week asynchronous class. It's currently a 199 class, which is in development. 199 LT. It's called Tech Innovations for the Experience Economy. And this is a class. It's an undergraduate class. There's still room in the class to sign up for the first eight weeks, the second eight weeks. And students get to reflect on how technology is impacting their own lives in our society, which, given how connected we are, I think everyone should reflect on, but I think a lot of people are also curious to reflect on.

So the class involves doing some readings and actually having these Oxford-style debates every week, where you have to argue for or against emotions such as smartphones in outdoor recreation settings are enhancing the experience, which you can see them enhancing it, or even see it distracting it.

And they also get to experience virtual reality every week. So they can come into my lab, which is a virtual reality in lab in 221 Huff Hall. Or they can come into the CITL Virtual Reality Lab in the Armory. Or the undergraduate library Media Commons. And put on these headsets, so they don't have to own the headsets themselves. And watch three to five minute videos each week. And that's actually one of the assigned readings, so to speak, for each week.

So the content that students are learning is focused around things very relevant to their own lives, but then also the way in which we're delivering it, I think, it's pretty interesting and unique. This is the only class that I know of that is using VR consistently at any big 10 university.

VINCE LARA: That's terrific. Thanks so much for your time, Matt.

MATT BROWNING: Thank you, Vince.

VINCE LARA-CINISOMO: Hello, this is Vince Lara, Media Relations Specialist at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend five minutes with Dr. Pasquale Bottalico, of the Department of Speech And Hearing Science, to talk about his recent study on ambient noise in restaurants and its effect on the bottom line.

PASQUALE BOTTALICO: So the goal of the restaurant, the idea of the restaurant, is what we can do to improve the situation in restaurant. So my study was actually started because there was a lack in the literature. And I'm always being interested, it's not the first paper that I worked about Lombard effect. I'm very interested in Lombard effect.

And I started to be interested in Lombard effect, again, starting from classroom acoustics, because the Lombard effect is basically characterized by a rate of voice increase per dB increasing noise in the environment. And the value is 72 for teachers, which is the highest. Generally, in the literature, it's reported between 0.3 and 0.6. But teacher, 0.72., so they're increasing their voice even higher.

VINCE LARA-CINISOMO: Every day?

PASQUALE BOTTALICO: Every day, for every dB of noise increasing in the classroom. So this means that restaurant noise-- everyone went to a restaurant in his life, and it can happen that after dinner with some people, at a restaurant, you go out and your throat's sore. And you don't really understand why. And because the Lombard effect is an unconscious effect, so you are not conscious of the fact that you are actually screaming.

But your voice, your body, and your physiology knows that. And so you will have the effect that your throat is burning. And I found particular the fact that this effect was never studied in a restaurant. And there were not studies correlating it with the willingness to spend money. So I thought it was a good idea to do the study. And I already did similar study for understanding other aspects of the Lombard effect. I was quizzing in the past about at which level of noise it starts, these effects, in other papers.

So I use a similar protocol, but I changed the setting, and it changed the noise. So I tried to recreate a restaurant in one of our sound booths. I had my students, my undergraduate students, that were the partner in the dinner. And we used typical restaurant noise, and we changed the level in a random way, covering a very large interval of noise, so from a medium level to a very loud level. Again, using the range of noise level reported by the literature, in restaurant noise.

And what it came out, that a level between 50 and 55 dB is starting this willingness to leave that place, and also to spend less money to eat in that place, and is starting the disturbance in the communication. And because of that, there is the objective evaluation of the voice, that is starting to increase at about 60 dB of noise. And all of these effects were quite strong.

We are starting to work again on the project. After the forum actually, because I kind of figured out that in this case, we used college students for this study, and I'm considering it like a pilot. But I want to move forward with the elder population.

And so, we know also that we have child in our college that's interested in new research on aging people. And we have a movement, that is the age friendly in Urbana-Champaign, to make the city more friendly for aging people. And I think that this project will fit perfectly.

So I have a doctoral student in audiology. She's going to start to collect data next semester. And the goal will be to create a different group in the elder population, normal hearing, and people with a moderate hearing loss, and people with a severe hearing loss. And try to understand better how these vulnerable populations are affected by the problem.

VINCE LARA-CINISOMO: My thanks again to Dr. Bottalico. This has been Five Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: Hello, this is Vince Lara, Media Relations Specialist at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend A Few Minutes With Jake Sosnoff, Professor in Kinesiology and Community Health at AHS, and we talk about Jake's research on falls prevention.

So Jake, what started your interest in falls prevention?

JAKE SOSNOFF: My interest in falls prevention really started with interacting with my grandfather. So my grandfather was a polio survivor. He had what was called post-polio syndrome. And it's essentially when you survive polio, it's the after-effects of that. Slightly more complicated than that, but for the most part, that's what we thought of it as. And because of polio, he had one leg that was weaker than the other. So he had a slight limp, and this made him at risk for falls. His walking was wobbly.

And because he was at risk for falls, as he was getting older, it became more and more problematic. And I remember, growing up as a teenager, I would literally walk two or three steps in front of him so that when he did lose his balance and fall, he would reach out and grab me. I liked my grandfather. He was someone from the greatest generation. He always had great stories-- and just being around him. So I've always been interested in understanding why people do or do not fall.

And added to that, I'm very lucky. I grew up in a family of orthotists/prosthetists, so people that made artificial limbs and braces. So I was always around people with mobility challenges. So that's just one of those topics that I've been interested in.

VINCE LARA: What motivated you to found the Illini Fall Prevention Clinic?

JAKE SOSNOFF: So falls are this huge problem, and I personally feel like we don't pay enough attention to them. It's just sort of thought like a problem of older people. So older people, their hair goes gray, they get wrinkles, and they fall. It's not that simple. Falls are a huge problem. 1 out of 4 older adults is going to fall in the next year. Somewhere up to 90% of all hip fractures are due to a fall. And then there's some data out there that suggests that upwards of 80% of traumatic brain injuries in older adults are due to falls, so huge public health implications.

Although if you look at the literature, we've been studying falls for 40-plus years. We know how to prevent them, but then if you look at death rates and injury rates due to falls, they're actually going up. To me, the issue is that we're not getting people who need preventive practices the preventive practices. We react to it.

So the goal of the Illini Fall Prevention Clinic is to use the research-grade equipment we have-- state of the art equipment-- and to essentially provide people with fall risk assessments. And arguably, these fall risk assessments are better than what they would get clinically because most clinics don't have this equipment. So my students and graduate students they run people through the tests of their walking, and their balance, and their thinking. And then based on the challenges we see, the difficulties we see, we then provide personalized prevention plans.

So we do that-- we run that out of the lab in Huff Hall. We also in the past have gone to different places. So we've done it at Clark-Lindsey. We're looking at doing it in some other retirement communities. So we really try to do this as a service to the community to give back.

VINCE LARA: Tell me a little bit about teaching people to fall safely.

JAKE SOSNOFF: So the other side of this is falls prevention, so let's try to stop people from falling. But my students and I joke, until we can get rid of gravity, which is really the reason people fall, people are going to fall. So your balance can be good. I know you're athletic. You're out there doing something, going for a run, and there's just some fluke. You fall to the ground.

So can we teach people to fall to the ground in such a way that they don't get hurt? Right? And in some sports, and martial arts, and judo, people are taught how to roll. Or in gymnastics, you're tumbling. You know how to do that. We learn that at-- we used to learn it all the time. Changes in physical education might move us away from learning how to tumble, but for the most part, we used to learn that. And the question is well, can we teach older adults to fall safely?

There's different approaches to try to have people fall safely. One idea-- and I think we're the same age that we started to wear bike helmets at some point because they realized that if you put a helmet on, you'll protect your head, which makes a lot of sense. So in the falls literature in the '90s, they started to have people wear hip protectors, which are wonderful, except nobody wants to wear a hip protector. So it's this question, can we teach people to fall safely?

And I had a graduate student that was incredibly gifted. She's now working at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab up in Chicago doing wonderful work on spinal cord injury, but her dissertation was focusing on trying to teach older adults to fall. And we came up with a paradigm-- I guess I should say she really came up with the paradigm-- where we have people fall to the side in an experimental setup. We measure how hard they hit the ground.

And then we have a group of people that we taught them how to fall what we call correctly, the tuck and roll technique. And we had another group where we just dropped them over and over to see if they would figure it out. And perhaps not too surprisingly, but when you teach people how to fall correctly, they reduce the amount of impact forces by about a third.

And then another interesting finding, which we weren't targeting, but it just sort of was something we found out-- which oftentimes is the best way to have science happen-- is we found that people that we taught to fall actually hit their head less than people who didn't know how to fall. So it's very preliminary data. It's a fairly small sample size, but it's one of the first instances where we provide some empirical scientific evidence that we can teach people to fall safely.

A caveat to this, Vince, is that we were looking at really healthy older adults. So when I call them old, the average age was 62. And as I get closer to 62, I realized that's no longer old. So these were very fit middle aged adults or young old, depending on how we want to classify it. And the question we have and as we're trying to pursue now, is can we teach perhaps less fit older adults or adults with some neurological impairment? Can we teach them how to fall safely? So that's ongoing research although we're very excited about it.

VINCE LARA: Speaking of ongoing research, you've done some interesting research on fall prevention technology. Talk a little bit about that if you would.

JAKE SOSNOFF: Thank you. So again, it goes back to how can we prevent falls. And it's this notion that people don't know their own fall risk. So the idea I told you a little bit earlier is that 1 out of 4 older adults is going to fall in the next year. Well, if I went out to the mall or went out somewhere, and I asked a bunch of old people-- or seniors, excuse me-- how likely they are to fall, data suggests it would be about 1 in 10 would say that, yeah, they're likely to fall. People aren't aware of the risk. They don't understand. They have a very poor understanding of their perceived risk.

And where technology can come in is we can actually use technology. So we've developed an app that we use on a smartphone. We would actually be able to show people their own fall risk and start to inform it. And so people don't get involved in fall prevention because they don't think they need it. They think they're perfectly fine, and they wait, in some cases, until it's too late.

So using our smartphones-based app, we ask them self-reported health history, their experiences with fall, if they've got injured. And then we actually measure their movement and their perception of their ability to do some of these movements. And based on that, we run it through a fancy algorithm, and we give them a fall risk. And essentially, we can tell them, you're likely to fall this year. We really think you should go do some prevention activities. Worst case scenario, you really should probably contact your physician and talk to them about your fall risk because there seem to be some areas and issues.

We've had four or five different papers published on this idea, and it seems to be a lot of room for growth in that smartphones are out there. It's upwards of 82% of the population have a smartphone. Most of us are fortunate enough to have an older adult close to us, so we can help them with the smartphone if they don't know how to use it. And we're at this wonderful position where we can start using technology to minimize the barriers for people to do fall prevention and just health behavior change in general.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Jake Sosnoff. This has been A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I spend a few minutes with Keiko Ishikawa of the Speech and Hearing Science department to discuss her research on voice disorders and helping people with dysphonia communicate better. My first question, did you always want to teach?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Well, this kind of came with my choice of job. And I always taught. I started out, actually, as a voice teacher. I went to a music school and before I went into speech pathology. And I was a voice teacher for many different individuals back then. So it was not classroom teaching, but that's how I started out as a teacher. And as you go through the PhD training, it just came with the job, and I discovered I really love teaching, and I find it very rewarding.

VINCE LARA: Now, was that in the States that you were teaching? Where were you teaching?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes, back in New Jersey.

VINCE LARA: Oh, OK. Got you. And so what kind of voice teaching were you doing? Like for singing?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes.

VINCE LARA: Oh, interesting.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: So I have two master's degrees. And one is in speech pathology. And another one is master's in music in voice performance and pedagogy. And so that was classical singing. I sang myself and then taught opera singers-to-be.

VINCE LARA: You know, I often ask faculty what inspires their research. So what inspired you to do what you do?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: OK, so as a clinician, I worked in Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. And I was a voice specialist there. And coming from a music background, I was all about, OK, let's make people's voice cleaner and prettier and you know, just get what they're wanting. So that's what we do.

But then I realized that people who come to my room said, Keiko, I don't care how I sound. I just need to talk. That's when kind of, oh, people are not really here for getting pretty voices. I mean, there are individuals who are also after that. But the majority of my patients were looking for the way to enhance their communicative ability. And I just had no way to measure that aspect of their disability.

So these people are chronically hoarse, struggling to talk in noisy places which, today's environment, everywhere is pretty noisy, like restaurants, classrooms, bus stops. We are exposed by noise all the time. So these individuals are struggling to get through their day, because they cannot be heard and understood in these daily environments.

So now, as a clinician, I had no way of measuring their struggles, which is a problem for clinical outcome measurement. And so I don't know how effective what I'm doing, and how much of a struggle these individuals are facing every day. That inspired me to look into the intelligibility problem in dysphonia population.

VINCE LARA: Now, you spoke about how your research focuses on voice disorders affecting speech intelligibility. So what are some of the challenges of people who have voice dysphonia, which is basically, you have hoarse all the time--

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Hoarseness.

VINCE LARA: Yes.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: So hoarseness obviously makes you sound like not yourself. And people may ask, like, are you sick, or can you speak up more. And then also, for children, there's some data saying that teachers perceive these children to be different from other healthy children. So just because of their voice, they are somewhat stigmatized. And that is something to think about as well.

VINCE LARA: Do they associate it with a learning disability?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Not necessarily.

VINCE LARA: OK. Now, the way we communicate today, meaning email and text, does that make it slightly easier for people who have chronic hoarseness to communicate?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: That is one of the means, of course. They can use that. I actually recommend that clinically when they are unable to use their voice, to use text, email, whatever that doesn't use voice. However, that doesn't really resolve the problem of daily things that they need to do.

So everybody needs to go to restaurants for enjoyment, as well as the job that you need to do this for your occupational reasons. And if you can't do that, you have a, say, breakfast meeting with your customer, that is a problem.

VINCE LARA: Absolutely. Now, what led you to the University of Illinois?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Well, University of Illinois is a research-oriented university. This is a very research-intensive university. I was always wanting to come to this type of institution while I was getting my PhD. Just happened to have an opening, and it was very, very attractive in terms of collaboration with the computer science and engineering. Some of those things that helped me advance my science in my lab. So I chose this place thinking that this is the best environment that I could progress in my research program.

VINCE LARA: So are you working on something that you're particularly excited about coming up?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Oh, many different things.

VINCE LARA: OK. Anything in particular you wanted to discuss?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Sure. Well, so one of the things we do here is to automate speech evaluation. So for example, as I said, people with dysphonia have a problem in noisy places. And this is very, very difficult to judge in a clinical setting, because clinical setting is quiet. You're usually with the patient without the noise in the background. So for us, it would be really good to have some sort of software that measures these challenges. And to do so, we have to have some acoustic-based software. And we are in process of developing that in collaboration with other labs.

So one of our activities that has become very fruitful was to open a free voice-screening clinic. And this was supported by provost faculty retreat grant, as well as the CITL, Center of Innovation, Teaching, and Learning.

VINCE LARA: Right.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: And this funding allowed us to, again, open the free voice clinic at the Speech and Hearing Science building, where we welcome anybody who is concerned about voice who just want to have a wellness visit to check what their vocal folds look like.

VINCE LARA: So anyone can come in?

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Anyone can come in. And we do this every Friday.

VINCE LARA: Oh, that's great.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: And so our students in our department also get to learn from this clinic. They get to interview the participants, as well as to watch me perform endoscopy and learn about anatomy and physiology and pathology of the voice disorders. So this has become a really good activity. And we were overwhelmed by the number of interested parties across the campus. And we realized that, well, we are thinking voice is important for teachers and also vocal performers. But what we didn't really realize that yes, every faculty member teach and talk and present. And so everybody was interested in voice problems. So we are now fully booked until February.

VINCE LARA: Wow.

KEIKO ISHIKAWA: Yes, so we are very fortunate to be given this grant.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Dr. Ishikawa. This has been A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I speak with Brandon Peters, starting quarterback for the Illinois football team, and RST grad student.

I'm talking with Brandon Peters, who's the starting quarterback for the Illinois football team. So Brandon, how much did graduate programs-- in terms of deciding where you wanted to continue playing-- how much did the academics part of it, and how much, honestly, did the football playing part it have a play in your decision?

BRANDON PETERS: I would say football was the main focus for me. But, you know, when I came on my official visit, they kind of laid out the academic plan for me. And, you know, kind of weighing my options. Illinois being the university that it is, they offered the RST program for me to be in, and sport management was always something I was interested in at Michigan. And I just thought it was a great opportunity to come to Illinois, also at the academic level.

VINCE LARA: Now, you're taking some online courses, what I had read. But you're on campus obviously a lot. Have you run into any of your professors? Or have you had a chance to interact with any of them?

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm.

BRANDON PETERS: (Prof.) Tiger. Yeah. I'm going to set up a meeting with him, and just get to know him a little bit, and talk to him.

VINCE LARA: Now obviously, football's the goal. Right? Ultimately, whether it's the NFL, CFL, XFL, or whatever it is. But if that doesn't happen, or even thinking post-football, do you have any ideas? Like, maybe RST hopes? You know, like you can work as a GM, or you can work in-- you're doing sport management as your focus, right? So what have you thought about post-football?

BRANDON PETERS: I really haven't thought much into it yet. I still have another year to play. When it gets to that time, I think I'm going to think at it in more depth. But like you said, I've always thought about staying in the sport world, since I've always been so close to it my whole life. I think this will definitely help me propel myself into the future when I get to that point.

VINCE LARA: You're from Avon, Indiana.

BRANDON PETERS: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: So did the proximity of Illinois play a big factor in deciding to come here?

BRANDON PETERS: Yeah. I mean, the other school that I had a lot of interest in too was Miami, Ohio, which is even closer than Illinois. Being able to stay at home was a great opportunity for me. And then just to be even closer to my family, and they could come to even more games. You know, my elders, my grandma and grandpa can travel well to games. So you know, it's nice to have that.

VINCE LARA: Definitely. One last question I have for you. What classes are you taking right now?

BRANDON PETERS: RST 515 and 512.

VINCE LARA: 512? What are those courses like?

BRANDON PETERS: Organization and marketing.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Brandon Peters. This has been A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: Hello. This is Vince Lara in the Communications Office at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I spend a few minutes with Justin Constantine, a Marine Corps officer, combat veteran, and Purple Heart recipient to talk about the upcoming traumatic brain injury event at Illinois.

Justin, so why is this event important to you?

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: Well, as someone who was injured in Iraq, I still have PTSD and traumatic brain injury. I did go to counseling for PTSD for 18 months, weekly sessions with a psychologist, which are incredibly helpful. I did a number of exercises for my brain as well. So my traumatic brain injury was relatively minor. But those are still issues I will face the rest of my life.

So I'm excited to come to this event because this is a big focus there. And also so I can share my story, I can share techniques that have worked for me to help other veterans and other civilians, frankly, who had some of the same challenges for a number of-- for any of those other reasons, but also to talk about employment and things that my company's is doing related to veteran employment and really different ways to push forward after a deployment, or after life in the military, or after a traumatic experience.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, I mean, some of the things you talked about there, what are the techniques that helped you get-- well, you said you're not past your TBI, but helped you deal with it?

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: Well, really just, first of all-- and I combined PTSD and TBI mentally, which is not smart to do. But in my mind, they're related. So I'll talk about PTSD first.

And so like I said, I to go to counseling for a year and a half every week for an hour at a time, one-on-one counseling, which has made a huge difference in my quality of life and the lives of people close to it because my wife could tell when I hadn't gone to counseling on a particular week. So that made a huge difference. And I've also been a peer mentor to other folks who have PTSD as well.

But also as part of their counseling, just seeing a professional identifying what's going on with me, with my mind, or my body, and understanding that that is, quote, unquote "normal, natural way" what I've been through after being shot the head in Iraq, and just learning from someone who has worked with other warriors before, who has studied this material, how to just come to terms and what I was going through and recognizing that my life is going to different-- it doesn't mean it's over or worse in any way, just different-- and then some techniques I could use when I am feeling anxiety, identifying situations that cause that anxiety, and then what I could do.

And for instance, one of the-- I know I'm not alone in this, a lot of veterans, including myself, can't really enjoy 4th of July because fireworks are a big problem, which is really unfortunate since it is 4th of July. So I know not to put myself in that environment, not to be exposed to loud noises that like, not to be in large crowds. So that's a triggering event which I avoid.

But also, if I feel myself getting frustrated or other senses on my PTSD, I can-- I learned basic building techniques, imagery, mental imagery, and doing things like that to help get me to a good place. When I worked in a corporate office for a few years, I worked in a cubicle. And I have my back towards the door.

And so I asked my boss if I could put a little mirror on my counter so I can see who is behind me because they're caused me a lot of discomfort as well. So that was easy to fix. So that's all related to the PTSD.

As far as the TBI goes, I did do a program for about a year online called Luminosity, which is really just to help get my memory because that was the main thing it was affecting-- how I was affected from my traumatic brain injury was some memory issues. Such I did that, which was quite helpful.

But also I constantly keep trying to learn and exercise my brain. And that includes a lot of reading. I read about two books a month and continuing formal education as well because I was incredibly fortunate when I was shot in your head. The bullet narrowly missed my brain. But there was a little bit of damage. But you try to exercise it as much as I can.

VINCE LARA: Do veterans often come to you for advice about how to deal with their injuries?

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: A fair amount, yeah. I developed a name for myself, I guess, in the Wounded Warrior community, two different organizations I'm a part of and just because I was somewhat senior in rank. I was a major at the time I was shot. And so a fair amount of people know who I am.

And so yes, a number do come to me with questions, typically questions over email or even LinkedIn. Sometimes it's a phone or a text. And I'm always happy to provide some guidance. But first and foremost, it is. And my first answer is, seek help that you need and deserve, provide them a different non-profit organizations, or also recommend the VA to coincide that process.

VINCE LARA: What are some of the things that the veterans need to look out for as signs of a traumatic brain injury or some of the symptoms that they need to be aware of?

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: That's a good question. I think one of the challenges is that especially if we're talking about someone who came back with from a deployment-- let's just assume it's a traumatic brain injury resulting from something overseas or a training accident here in the States-- or training accident anywhere, I guess.

And so first and foremost, they have feel comfortable. They should feel comfortable identifying they went through that experience. And a lot of times, obviously in war, it's hard to do that. There's a high op tempo. There are significant things going on around you.

But, I mean, I was shot. But two weeks before that, I was involved in an incident where I was almost blown up by an improvised explosive device. And we had a protocol in place wherever you are exposed to a bomb like that, you had to go see the corpsman and have a recording.

And so we were fortunate that was in place. That wasn't always the case. And I'm sure in some instances now it's not done. So this requires senior leadership to make sure things are in place, to encourage an environment where soldiers feel comfortable reporting their injury.

But also, again, there is a certain accountability I want service members and veterans to hold themselves to, to go and seek the care that they need. And if nothing else, if for no other reason, than to have that issue recording in your medical record, your official military medical record, because for instance, a lot of times the symptoms don't show up for six months, or a year later. That was the case with me. It was a little bit later. And if that stuff is not recorded, then you will have a tough time with your VA disability claim establishing that.

So you asked me about what are some symptoms they should look out for. For me, it was just that I noticed it right away. I couldn't think of basic words. Things I was trying to communicate, I had a talk around these certain words. So that's how it manifested for me. But with other folks, it can be blurred vision, feeling sick a lot, nauseous, and other typical traumatic brain injury symptoms.

But the underlying message, though, is when you have symptoms or when you feel different than you used to, take care. Veterans have five years of free medical care with the VA. You're entitled to that now. It's the law. So go ahead and seek that care right away and make sure you're utilizing resources around you.

VINCE LARA: You mentioned it took six months for you to see some of your symptoms.

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Typically, how long can it take? Or is there a long end and a short end of those things?

JUSTIN CONSTANTINE: From what I read, it does depend on the severity of traumatic brain injury. For instance, I mentioned I have a mild TBI. There's medium and severe.

And I'm not sure if there is a difference between the three when the symptoms turn up. But I have heard many times from professionals and others that it's not unusual for six months to a year, and the same with PTSD, before the symptoms start coming up.

So I guess some challenge is for some people-- like my incident was obviously major. It was obvious I was shot. That's a massive event.

But others might not be that way. For instance, when I was almost blown up, the bomb didn't detonate correctly. They put it in backwards. So we were sprayed with dirt and rocks from the street, not shrapnel, which would have killed us if they put it in properly. Six months after that event, I very well may not have connected the two if I had traumatic brain injury from that incident.

So you do have to sit and think, what has happened to me when it's something internal. And what could have caused this? It may not have been something as obvious as a car accident, but maybe some other event that happened. Even if I had fell banged my head really hard or something like that, you do have to think about it to identify what happened.

And you go get that-- in the military and across our country as a whole, we don't really feel comfortable talking about mental health issues for some reason. And so I encourage folks-- I'm wide open about mine. I encourage folks, go have-- if you think you have an issue, go have it checked out. You may have to pay a co-pay. It's worth it.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Justin Constantine. This has been "A Few Minutes With."

VINCE LARA: Hello, this is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend a few minutes with Susannah Scaroni, two-time Paralympian who's looking for her third trip to the games in 2020 in Tokyo.

Well I'm speaking with Susannah Scaroni, who is a 2020 Paralympian hopeful, we'll say--

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yes.

VINCE LARA: --if that sounds right to you.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yes.

VINCE LARA: And you also competed in 2016 in Rio, so this will be your second games.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Also 2012.

VINCE LARA: Wow, so this will be your third.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Hopefully will be the third.

VINCE LARA: Hopefully it will be the third for you.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: Well, let's talk about where you got your start in racing.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Well, I grew up in a little tiny farming community in eastern Washington. And I was fortunate enough to be close to Spokane, Washington, just about an hour away. But there's an adaptive sports program for youth there. So I learned about it through Shriners Hospital and immediately fell in love with it.

So I started out on the ParaSport Spokane team. And when you're in that world of adaptive sports, you learn about the University of Illinois. They have been just such a powerhouse with wheelchair athletes for decades. So I applied to come here, and here I am. And I love it.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, that was going to be my next question is that you're from the Pacific Northwest, and you ended up here. So obviously coach Bleakney's reputation preceded him, and that was part of why you decided to come here.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Absolutely. Yeah. So I went to school a couple years in Montana before I came here, just based on financial reasons. But the second year I was there, coach Adam, he gave me a call and was like, hey, I don't know-- are you still interested in coming?

Because we have this other funding opportunity now. And so I was. After even two years of training on my own and doing my own thing, I still loved racing. I had my racing chair out there with me and decided to transfer over in 2011.

VINCE LARA: That's amazing. Now, we talked about you were in 2012 and 2016. So let's say you're one of the veterans on the team. Because a team, you have people as young as 19.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Right, exactly.

VINCE LARA: So do your teammates come to you for advice, and is that mentor role something you like?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yes and yes, and especially more recently I've been realizing more and more that we have new waves of freshmen coming in, and I'm in my third year of grad school now. And just being able to be this wealth of knowledge for a whole host of reasons, whether it's living independently at college, whether it's navigating accessible areas on campus, or I'm really passionate about nutrition. So there are some questions about nutrition and training and not doing certain things downstairs, like being tiny. All of these experiences are things I love to share with the new athletes that come in.

VINCE LARA: Now, this being potentially your third, do you look ahead to 2024 already? Or are you saying to yourself, this might be my last one? Especially when you are in school.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: That's a good segue into that question because I have thought about this. But one thing I also really love in my career is the role model aspect of it. So right now we're at a really cool part of wheelchair marathon awareness because Abbott World Major Series has a wheelchair division now. And I can still foresee myself continuing to push that wave of women wheelchair racers while the next group gets up to that point.

But it kind of sort of depends on where that is. There's a lot of women I race with that are all within the same age. And so I wouldn't want us all to stop at one time, and then all that really hard work just kind of go down a little bit. So I might see how it goes, see where the rest of the world is and the rest of the US females, and keep racing. I'm also not entirely sure yet.

VINCE LARA: OK. Well, what are your plans-- well you just talked a little bit about your plans. You're training to become a registered dietitian here at Illinois.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yes.

VINCE LARA: And so what's after sport?

SUSANNAH SCARONI: Yeah, well, that's a great question. The way I sort of foresee my career goals, I would love to be a sports dietitian with US Paralympics. I think it's great to-- nutrition is a basic field. But when you can apply it and adapt it to para athletes, I think having been one will add a really nice element to the advice I can give in the future. So I want to just try it out and see what it's like being a sports dietitian.

And I haven't completely thrown out the possibility of continuing research. There's a lot of things that need to be studied in para athletes still. So I've really enjoyed sports physiology as well as nutrition science in my grad school program so far. So I think I could see that being a possible future thing to do as well. Yeah.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Susannah Scaroni. This has been A Few Minutes With.

VINCE LARA: Hello, this is Vince Lara in the communications office at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend a few minutes with Alexa Halko, 2016 Paralympian training for the 2020 games here at Illinois.

All right. I'm with Alexa Halko, Paralympian. Alexa, now, you competed in Rio in 2016. You were the youngest US athlete there.

How is it going to be different now that you're training for 2020? And do you feel like you're more of a mentor in this role? Is it any different for you at all?

ALEXA HALKO: Yes, I believe it'll be different, just because I've had more experience to get to know the sport a little better. I've been in it for-- I started Paralympic-wise in 2014. So I've really gotten to be around more experienced athletes. And I feel like that will just keep building on itself, obviously, over the years. So I think that's what will be different in 2020.

VINCE LARA: What did you learn from 2016 that you're trying to apply to your 2020 training?

ALEXA HALKO: I learned that you're going to have hard years. After 2016, it was such a frenzy. I was like, well, this is awesome. It's your first Paralympic Games. You don't even know what to think after that.

But the year after, in 2018, I didn't have the best year. And I kind of just went with it and just stayed with it. But it kind of showed me that you're not going to have the best years every year. You just got to go with it and just keep going, I guess.

VINCE LARA: Now, you loved basketball when you were growing up. So how did you transition into racing? What got you into that?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, so I actually played basketball and track at the same time. So it wasn't really like an, oh, I'm choosing basketball over track. Even though I do love basketball still, track was just my main one, I would say, my main sport, just because I liked the solo part of it. I like a team, and that's super awesome. But for me, I feel like just going solo and just doing my own thing is what I like.

VINCE LARA: OK. Yeah. Now, you were born in Oklahoma. Your family moved to Virginia. How did you end up here at Illinois?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah. So I actually have been looking at this program since I started, because it's commonly known that this is, like, the best program you can be in for the wheelchair track world. And so it's always been an aspiration for me to come here since I was, like, 14. So I feel like I was just hoping and just keep training so I would come here.

VINCE LARA: Did you have any interaction with Coach Blakeney at all beforehand? Or was that something that was talked about in Paralympic circles, like, oh, Illinois is a great program?

ALEXA HALKO: Well, yeah, it's always known to be the best program you can go to. So yeah, it is commonly known. And I would always see Coach Adam at competitions.

So I would always see him. And he would always be with the Illinois team. So I would hang out with them and know them. So it's always been, I see them. And I've been aware that they're around.

VINCE LARA: How much of your deciding to come to Illinois was based on even academics, beyond what DRES has in the wheelchair racing? Did you factor that in as, Illinois is a great school, too?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, no, for sure. It's awesome that I can continue my education, but also be at such a great training program. And that just works, because I don't want to just drop everything school-wise, but still keep going with my dream of racing and continuing my Paralympic, I guess, career. So I think it's just the best of both worlds, because what could be better than this setup?

VINCE LARA: Absolutely. What are you studying at Illinois?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, so I'm a communications major.

VINCE LARA: OK. So this is perfect.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, actually.

VINCE LARA: That's great. Now, you're still so young. You're 20?

ALEXA HALKO: I'm 19.

VINCE LARA: You're 19.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: So what's next for this? How long do you expect you'll compete? And then after that, will you coach? Do you see yourself as more of a mentor role?

ALEXA HALKO: I've never seen myself as a mentor, to be honest. I think coaches are awesome. I just never have put myself in that position.

I do like outreach and seeing the new kids come up, so maybe possibly in the future. But yeah, we'll just have to see. I definitely just hope to keep training, keep competing, and just see where it kind of goes from there.

VINCE LARA: Well, how long do you think you'll compete? Do you see 2024? Do you start to look and say, this is probably the last one I can do?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah. I feel like if you're in these cycles, you're just thinking about, oh, the next games. You get in such a cycle mindset. And so I think I'll go probably until 2024, maybe later. I'll be here till 2022. And then whatever I do after that, I'll probably stay here maybe.

VINCE LARA: Yeah, there's grad programs.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, no, exactly.

VINCE LARA: Got to consider AHS.

ALEXA HALKO: Yep. So yeah, it might just go on from there. But we'll see.

VINCE LARA: What do you think about beyond sports? What's the career for you? So you're studying communications now. Do you hope to break into that field?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, I definitely was thinking about something Paralympic-wise in communications. I think that would be really cool, just because I know a lot of the Paralympic track world-wise. And I feel like doing something with that, not just completely blowing it off-- doing something with would be really cool, because I've been so in this world for a while.

VINCE LARA: With the USOPC or something in that range? OK.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, maybe.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. And now that you're here at Illinois, where do you see your future beyond school and work? Do you feel like you could settle here because of how great the training site is?

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah. I'm not really set on a certain location to live. Just because this program is so awesome, I know so many people who have stayed here just for the program. And that makes me think, hey, maybe that might be a good option, because so many people have succeeded from staying here. So it would be a good option, for sure.

VINCE LARA: What would be your advice to somebody who aspires to reach the Paralympics or even compete? Maybe they don't make the team, but they're in the training process for it.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, no. Definitely study, not in the school sense, but study your favorite racers. I think that's kind of something that helped me. I just was observing my favorite racers and just--

VINCE LARA: Who were your favorite racers?

ALEXA HALKO: So I always looked up to Tatyana (McFadden). She's the best woman--

VINCE LARA: And now you get to train with her.

ALEXA HALKO: Yeah, exactly. And that's been an aspiration, because this is the program to be in, and then to race against or compete with some great teammates. But yeah, so just observing and just-- people say it all the time-- but just do it. Just keep going with it.

You're going to have hard years. And it's not going to go the way you always want it to go. But it's just about staying with it, because that's what's got me here. So I'm going to keep going.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Alexa Halko. This has been "A Few Minutes With."