The Bradley University Podcast

Cory Craig, Director of Admission Visit Experiences

• Bradley University • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Angie Cooksy:

Welcome back to another episode of the Bradley University Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Angie Cooksy. I serve as the Vice President for Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Communications.

Ben Jedd:

And I am AVP of Marketing Communications, Ben Jed.

Angie Cooksy:

Ben, we have been doing this for how many episodes are we in now?

Ben Jedd:

I have no idea.

Angie Cooksy:

We're in season two.

Ben Jedd:

We're in season two.

Angie Cooksy:

I know that much.

Ben Jedd:

And I think we're on episode, if like things are going in order, like five of season two, right?

Angie Cooksy:

Probably, yeah. Pretty close.

Ben Jedd:

Maybe six or six. Five or six.

Angie Cooksy:

Um, what so far has been your favorite part about doing these shows?

Ben Jedd:

Um I honestly, like, as simple as it sounds, it's just getting to know other people on campus and hearing their stories. Like, like it's amazing to hear faculty research or different student experience, and just the passion that people have for their jobs is awesome.

Angie Cooksy:

Ah, I totally agree.

Ben Jedd:

What do you like about it?

Angie Cooksy:

Um one that we get to show people this space on campus, which I know sounds like a little self-promotional, but there's so many places around Bradley's campus that people just don't know about because it's not your space, though.

Ben Jedd:

It's not like self-promotion.

Angie Cooksy:

No, like this, but like this shows, you know, where you're like you.

Ben Jedd:

Um anyways.

Angie Cooksy:

But like that we get every time we have somebody down here in Hilltop Studios, that they're like, oh, I just didn't even know this existed. Absolutely. And I think that's such a kind of cool testament, weirdly, to all of the opportunities that are available at Bradley of like, oh my gosh, you just like if you you just ask and you'll find out that we have a space like this, or we have, you know, a wind tunnel, or we have drop tower.

Ben Jedd:

Like Bill, who is our producer, absolutely, who will actually like help put this together. So it's not just you and me sitting in one of our offices with some kind of garbage mics trying to figure it out on our own.

Angie Cooksy:

That may have been how we started to try to do this, and Bill helped us make it way better. So um, yeah, and going back to what you said about it being about interviewing the the awesome people on campus, that's the whole point of the show is to highlight people that are doing really great work, that are really just amazing. And today we have Cory Craig who is joining us, who is the director of admission experiences here at Bradley's campus. Welcome, Cory.

Cory Craig:

Yeah, congratulations on getting picked up in your second season. Thank you.

Angie Cooksy:

It's good that we uh are the ones that can put it on the website so we have a little control over.

Cory Craig:

We know the guy. Got your writer's bag. Good, good, good.

Angie Cooksy:

Um, so what we do on the show to start out is give people a little bit of space to talk about who they are, what their journey to the seat that they sit in today, and also to explain sometimes their titles because we have a lot of titles on our campus that have a lot of really a lot of words sometimes. Um, and your title is one that we have gone.

Cory Craig:

We kind of made it up.

Angie Cooksy:

We did make it up. That's fine. Uh so what is the director of admission experiences and what has your journey been to that seat today?

Cory Craig:

Oh, okay. Uh okay, so this is starting year 29 for me. Uh came to Bradley in 1996 and started over in Swords Hall and was a loan coordinator over there. So um back in the day we had a lot of paper. There was not a lot of computers, so a lot of promissory note signing, all of that kind of stuff, helped do that for a while. And then, like many things at Bradley's, somebody moved on and then you moved up. Um, and I moved into the role of the accounts receivable manager, so which is a fancy title for the person that brings in all the tuition money. So um, very quickly, uh, and I did that for 10 years uh over in Swords Hall, but very quickly I realized I was a non-accountant living in an accounting world, and I had all kinds of color in my life, and everything over there was black and white. Um, so sometimes I didn't fit in. Um, and the imagine that the great former Dave Pardick, director of financial aid, who was here for you know 40 years, he finally sat me down. He's like, kid, you're in the wrong business. He's like, You're good at your job. He's like, but you need to go over to the other side of the world in admissions. And so I snuck over to admissions um on my lunch break and interviewed over there. Um, and before I even got back to my office in swords, they had already called and hired me. So I'm like, all right, well, maybe this is what I should be doing. Um, and so I started in admissions. I started becoming a transfer counselor, did that just for maybe not even six months, and then again, something opened up and I kind of fell into that role. And I took over um being in charge of all of our tour guides on campus and um really have elevated everything that we try to do, which is why I worry about the experience of our visitors. So being the director of admission visit experience is very important to me because I want people to come to this campus and feel like, oh, I haven't seen that before, I haven't heard that before. Oh my gosh, the tour guides are so great. They do this, they do that. I want them to walk away knowing that we are different than everybody else. And that's been a great joy. So now 19 years in admissions, that's that's a lot. So 29 total, but here we are. Here we are.

Ben Jedd:

And in 2010, you and Angie started a band together. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Angie Cooksy:

What? Ben likes to lie together. We've done a lot of things. We have to get learning together.

Cory Craig:

I don't think a band.

Angie Cooksy:

I mean, no, we have not done that.

Ben Jedd:

You had to think about it.

Cory Craig:

Well, I mean I mean, our kids could start a band. She has great, you know, musicians, and I have great singers.

Ben Jedd:

That was actually what I was going to transition this to. Okay.

Angie Cooksy:

Uh before Ben just likes to lie to people about my abilities to do it. We can be mommagers.

Ben Jedd:

Yeah, yeah. I would I would like to know. So we'll ask you more questions about working at Bradley, but you're also a Bradley parent.

Cory Craig:

Yeah.

Ben Jedd:

And can you talk about that experience and your kids' experience and your experience as a Bradley mom?

Cory Craig:

Yeah. I am the only one in my family that's not going to graduate from Bradley. My husband graduated from here, our oldest, our one, is here now, and then we've got a senior in high school who is going to be coming here next year. So um, yeah, it was so fun for me. Like I've always understood, like as a parent, you know, when you talk to people on tours and they're making that decision how huge it is. But when your own child comes, then it kind of elevates it to a whole nother level. Um, and again, and I will just tell you about our oldest child. She came to Bradley kicking and screaming because she did not want to come to Bradley, because apparently to her, I am not cool, um, as everybody thinks I am. And um, so we went on a lot of college visits and we toured almost 20 different campuses because we were going to use our um great benefit and see if she could go to another school for free because she was like, I'm not going to Bradley, I'm not going to Bradley. Um, and so on all of these visits that we went on, which was joyful for me because I got to see all of our competitors doing their stuff, trying to woo us. And um at the end of it, we got back in the car and I'm like, girl, like, what are we doing? Like, this is crazy. We just keep looking and looking and looking. And she sat and she kind of like put her head back and she's like, Ugh, I hate that I love Bradley so much. And I'm like, that could be our next tagline in marketing. You know, you're gonna hate that you love us, but here we are. So yeah, you don't think that's good? So she came in. She also was a child who's like, I am absolutely never joining a sorority because you were in one and it sounds awful. And then she became like the vice president of her sorority and ran recruitment. So everything that I've told her to do has happened, and it's really irritating to her that I was right. So, um, but that has been really fun for me to watch her go through it. She was also the child that was here during COVID. So that was a new level of everything that we've never experienced.

Angie Cooksy:

I would like to never experience any of that.

Cory Craig:

Yeah, I'm I would like a pass on anything cut me. Global pandemic. Yeah. Well, I want another one. Um, but it did force us to make a lot of funky decisions and admissions and see the world differently. And I mean, there was a lot of joy that came out of what we ended up having to do. But um, yeah, having kids that go through that is tough. Um, now that my other daughter is here, she's gonna a junior at Bradley. Um, all our oldest daughter says is, I never got to do that because of COVID. I can't believe you're going on study abroad. All my study abroads were canceled. So now there's like this whole dynamic in my house who's like bitter older sister and the middle child getting to do all the fun stuff. Um, and I'm like, that's just gonna be your entire life. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Yes, it is a lot like that.

Angie Cooksy:

But also, like to give Carly some shout out, like she also just landed like her dream job.

Cory Craig:

Yeah, like within five years. Lee Newton, yeah. She um she was a kid in high school, uh, and when she went to high school, she was kind of unsure of what she wanted to do with she liked a lot of majors and she just wasn't sure. And there's all this pressure on kids in high school to have something, like you know, everybody's like, oh, I'm gonna be a nurse or I'm gonna be an engineer. And those are things that you go to school for, and then you do that job. And she wanted to go to school and then get a job in something, and she wasn't sure. And those kids kind of struggle in high school because they don't know their identity yet. But um, when she came to Bradley, I said, throw out everything you know, let's come in undecided. And she's like, I've like, I kind of know what I want. I said, but undecided is gonna help you kind of figure out what you're good at. Um, so she did the AEP program, the academic exploration program, and did that for a year and knew right away what she liked and what she didn't like. You know, anything to do with science, out. Um, anything to do with communications, in. Uh, and I she gets that from her mom. And so anyway, she became a public relations major. She loved to write, she's a really good author, and so she picked up English and creative writing, and then she also knew she wanted to be her own boss someday, so she picked up entrepreneurship. So this kid had three different majors in three different colleges, and that to me is like the essence of a Bradley kid. Um, you do to do multiple different things. But in English and creative writing, um, she kept saying, you know, she wants to get into publishing. I don't know anything about publishing, and I didn't know anybody that knew anything about publishing. So Lee Newton said, Hey, there's a program at NYU after graduation she should apply for. She goes to New York. Um, she'll live in Manhattan in the apartments there and go for like six weeks. And at the end of this um six-week kind of exploratory thing and publishing, it ends in a job fair. And, you know, she can probably get a job. So her dad is like, check, check, I'm in. I heard get a job. And also, all of her study abroads were canceled. Um, she was gonna do a corral trip and stuff. So I'm like, okay, New York is like a study abroad. Let's have her go there. Um, and also I thought to myself, this will be great because she'll go to New York and then she'll hate it and not want to live there. And that completely backfired up for me. Not so well, not well at all. So um she ended the stuff at NYU. She ended up getting a job in Ann Arbor, um, which was really like a nice place to land after Bradley. And she lived in Ann Arbor for two and a half years and was doing stuff up there. And then finally, she's like, New York has always been in the back of her head. Like, that's been her dream. So uh, I think a month ago, we put her on a plane to New York. She got a job at um Bloomsbury Press out there publishing, which is the big publishing company that does the Harry Potter Potter books in the United States, and uh Sarah J. Moss is one of their big authors. And so um, after five interviews, she finally got this job. And so she's loving it. She's got a job in Midtown Manhattan, she's living in Brooklyn in a brownstone, like she's just figuring it all out. Yeah. I'm like, this is so fun. But honestly, I she's been winning a lot of the Broadway lottery tickets. If you don't know, you can put your name in every day and win tickets to Broadway shows for really, really cheap. Um, she's won four times and she's only been there a month. I'm like, could you maybe put your name in the actual Illinois lottery? It's like a 1.2 billion right now. I'm like, that would be a great lottery to win. But she does go to to uh to her job, so it all worked out. But yeah, it was kind of a crazy path to get there. But the people at Bradley kind of helped navigate that whole thing and helped her be successful, and that's why I love this place.

Angie Cooksy:

Yeah.

Ben Jedd:

You know, I mean, I just asked a question. Oh, did you ask a question? I get lost in our it's fine.

Angie Cooksy:

We won't cut it out. It's fine. We just let everybody hear all of our chaos.

Cory Craig:

This is to let everybody know this is a real podcast.

Angie Cooksy:

This is a real podcast. We not scripted, we just wing it every time. Um, well, I kind of want to talk a little bit about the mom experience, but it from a different lens. And you mentioned this our stars, which are our tour guides, and in a lot of ways, you serve as sort of their Bradley mom for for so many of them, probably for hundreds of students over the years. Yeah, I think you've been to more Bradley weddings than anybody that I know.

Cory Craig:

A lot of Bradley star babies, a lot of Bradley babies.

Angie Cooksy:

Um what has that role in your professional experience looked like?

Cory Craig:

Yeah, it's been everything. It is so fun. Like I always say, like 18-year-olds are kind of my the perfect age because they have that one foot in adulthood and one foot in childhood, and they make dumb mistakes, but they also make very adult decisions. And that's like my favorite age to mentor because you can still mess up in college and do dumb stuff, but also you're learning the whole time. So um I, you know, I never knew I I never wanted to be a teacher, but I'm kind of like that here. I mean, it is nice. We usually have about 60, 70 kids that at work in our stars program, our student admission representatives who are known as our tour guides. And each of them comes in from different parts of the world, the earth, everything, and they've had all these different experiences. And what I start teaching them, we do about six weeks of training with our stars before they ever give a tour, is really kind of an internship and relationships. And I want them to not be afraid to pick up a phone and call somebody. I want that, which this generation struggles with. We have to teach them how to use the phone. Literally have to teach how to use the phone, which is a weird thing. Um, but it, I'm like, you don't have any idea how successful you'll be if you can do that one tiny skill because so many of your friends can't do it. Like, are you the guy that calls and orders the pizza? Do they make you do it? Yes. Um but those kind of skills, like how to really understand people, how to be accommodating, how to make people feel special. I always say that being a tour guide is about making people feel comfortable. So once they've learned all those things through like our weird ways of teaching and all the stuff that we do, um, you know, they they'll come back, they'll call me and they'll be like, you know, I took a lot of classes at Bradley, he's but one of my students just called, it was probably about six months ago, and he has a six-figure job at Nashville. And he's like, he goes, I would quit my job tomorrow if I could come back and give to her. So I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that, don't do that. That's good advice. Don't do that. But he just he loved the fact that you could like spend an hour with a family walking around a place that you love and kind of make that connection, that human connection that I think everybody's kind of searching for right now. Um, and his job that he has is is very sterile and you know, it makes a lot of money, but there's not a lot of human component to it. So um I it it made me tear up when he called and and and told me all of that because I was like, what a dumb, like part-time job that you have in college. You know, this is like you're walking backwards and you're giving tours, and you know, it's whatever. And for him to have that much impact, I mean, that was really cool. So you know you're like striking a nerve with these kids. Maybe they don't see it every day, but you will get through to them and help them understand that this kind of silly little job is gonna make you tenfold better after Bradley.

Ben Jedd:

That's so sweet. Yeah. Um I think it's awesome the impact you have on so many students at Bradley. Um what's something people so a lot of people on this campus know you?

Angie Cooksy:

What's so she's become the person that people call when they need something. Like Cory Craig will know. Just call Cory.

Ben Jedd:

I literally called Cory today to ask her how I hire students. Uh so and I'll I'll take you one better.

Cory Craig:

You called the switchboard. Yeah, well, that's because that is the number of number. Yeah, for sure.

Ben Jedd:

That's the number on your email signature. So uh, and even better, um, our administrative assistant said to call you to ask how to do it. So um yeah.

Cory Craig:

I know when I first started here, you know, I was in my early 20s and I was like, I didn't know anybody, but I always knew who knew what to, you know, how to get things done. And now I'm that person. I didn't want to be that person.

Ben Jedd:

You actually have to give out the switchboard number as your number because too many people are calling you.

Angie Cooksy:

Yeah, I remember like when this happened. It was probably like, I don't know, maybe nine or ten years ago, but I was in your office and somebody called and it was just one of those random things, and you hung up the phone and you were like, When did I become the person that people call to that knows stuff?

Cory Craig:

That knows stuff. Oh god, I know. I institutional knowledge is a real thing. Like, you know, if you're here long enough, you're gonna understand like timing and when things happen and why they happen and what the you know how it all goes together. So, and you know, when you have people, new people that come in, you have to teach them all of those things.

Ben Jedd:

Oh, yeah, as a new person, a hundred percent. Like, and I I I am like absorbing as much as I can. So, yeah, my question is what is something people don't know about you?

Cory Craig:

Oh man, I so open book. I don't know. I feel like my stars would probably say, we know too much about her. Um actually, could she stop caring? Stop being so much in our personal lives, that would be great. Uh I don't know. I mean, I think the weirdest thing about me is a couple things. Number one, I grew up on a farm and I was the least farming person ever. Um my whole family's any farm, though. A hog farm. She grew up on a pick farm. On a hog farm, yes. Yeah. And I know nothing about farming, like literally nothing, but I know enough to stay in a conversation, and that's all it takes. But I don't know anything about it. Like they might have an older brother, and they always asked him to go outside, and I stayed inside. Um, so that's probably a big thing. And then my other big thing that's really wonky and weird, um, I went to Augustana College uh for uh my four years and went there. I was a first gen. My parents are hog farmers, my mom's a beautician, and they send this kid to this liberal arts school, and I called them and you know, we didn't know what major I wanted to be. I had no idea what majors were. I was just really in over my head. Um, and what they had they had an undecided program. So they put me in a gym and I had a table with a bunch of books on it, and they're like, look through these books and spark a major. And I'm like crying, like looking around, like, why is this how you do it? Um, and so I wrote a paper my senior year about businesses in Japan. Next thing you know, I am an Asian studies major.

Ben Jedd:

Awesome.

Cory Craig:

What? My poor parents are like, is that a thing? Yeah, yeah, I guess. I don't know. Like, I'm just a girl from a hog farm who's studying Asian studies, but I was in Japanese language classes. I then studied abroad abroad.

Ben Jedd:

Is that your degree, actually?

Cory Craig:

I have well, I was communications, psychology, and Asian studies.

Ben Jedd:

Okay.

Cory Craig:

All these things kind of help you become a person in admissions. Um geez. Um, so yeah, I could have probably used a little bit of mentorship along. Sure. But I studied abroad in Japan. I was over there for um Japan, China, Hong Kong. Hong Kong and uh um what's the other one? Uh uh oh my gosh.

Angie Cooksy:

Taiwan?

Cory Craig:

Yes, thank you. Like she was there. No, we do share a brain sometimes, so we do finish these other sandwiches all the time. Um, but being over there, that's uh that's how do you have daughters? Do you not have that's totally a frozen reference? Frozen. Nothing, nothing there for you?

Ben Jedd:

No, I mean I've seen frozen.

Cory Craig:

Well then you haven't really seen it.

Ben Jedd:

I guess I mean I understand. Like I get you.

Cory Craig:

You were looking at your phone while you were watching it.

Ben Jedd:

I mean, I see it's on in the background like for so long that like Yeah.

Cory Craig:

But being over there was wack-a-doodle, especially being in China. It was 1992. We're in China. There was we followed the path of Ma Zedong. I'm like staying in caves, like we were just it was bananas. And um, and then they dropped us off in Hawaii for a couple days, I think, to put a little color on our face because we all lost like 40 pounds because all we ate was rice. Um, but that was like one of those aha moments where you're like, oh, I can do hard things. Like, I this is this is good, you know, and it kind of really helps you open your mind to stuff. But um, yeah, so I think those are the two weird things about me, the farming and the Asian studies, you know.

Ben Jedd:

I actually walk when perfect. I I thought when Angie said that, I thought she said you lived on a hawk farm. And I was like, What's what's a hawk farm? Yeah, I mean I I caught on to the whole thing, but I was just thinking like of hundreds of birds. Yeah.

Cory Craig:

Um not that exciting.

Angie Cooksy:

Um one of the things that has been really uh the probably one of the coolest parts of of the work that I've gotten to do with you over the years is that we get to experiment and play and create. Yeah. Um, what of the projects that you've done over the years, what's been one of those things that you look back on and are like, dang, we did that.

Cory Craig:

Yeah, it had to be during COVID. Oh, we did some stuff. We did some stuff during COVID. So um I, you know, nobody was visiting any colleges because, you know, six feet apart and whatever, and all of that kind of stuff. And we still had to bring in a class. Like, how do you get people to come to your school when you can't get them to your campus? So we started doing curbside visits where we had our tour guides come out to the car, like with a little tray, because we didn't touch anything, and they had their folder and a bottle of water and stuff. And um, then we walked six feet apart and did all that, and we're like, okay, we can do this better. And then we saw uh out in New York in Central Park, they had these little circles that were drawn, and they were six feet apart from another circle. And then you, Angie, and I started kind of like, could we do this? We could do this. Could we have them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think those will work. So we had our lovely grounds people who I think they think were insane. Um but they're the best. They are literally the best people on this planet draw squares out in front of Hayden Clark Alumni Center, and these squares were six feet apart, and we put two red chairs in each square and um sanitized everything and had this visit day where people faced Hayden Clark Alumni Center, and we had to do it as the sun was going down because we had screens, and um, it was magical. It was literally magical. It was life-changing for so many people. They were like, Oh my god, you're the only school that's open, that's allowing people to visit and in a healthy way. And we just tried to do everything by the book, and um, that was to me was kind of really, really fun.

Angie Cooksy:

Yeah, I look back at some of the things, like it was just we're just we're just trying things.

Cory Craig:

We were because we didn't know what would work, and everything was a fever dream.

Angie Cooksy:

So we're like, oh text message. Yeah. Well, as we wrap up the show, one of the questions that we ask every single person is what are you unapologetically exceptional at?

Cory Craig:

Well, oh god, that's so hard. You don't want to brag on yourself, but I'm pretty good at planning a party. Um so yeah, I mean, I mean Janart, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I think Angie's probably better at balloons, but um just these are skills that everybody must have when you're in admissions. I mean, the the fact that I'm I think also good at just bringing people together. Like we can have a visa day, and it doesn't matter if it's first gen kids, if it's kids from um the Chicago suburbs, if it's kids from out of state, and instantly I want them to feel like they belong here. And the stuff that we do and and the way that we act and all of the stuff, the weird stuff we do. Like, you know, if you come to one of our visit days, you'll park in the deck and then our stars will literally attack you and then walk you to not in a weird way. Not in a weird way, in a lovely way.

Ben Jedd:

Not literally, we will not literally attack you.

Cory Craig:

It would be very different. Um, and then walk you to exactly where you want to be. Because I know from visiting all these colleges, colleges are huge, and you sh park, and then you're like, where do we go? Every building looks alike. I don't know, and to have that human there that's there to greet you is like a game changer for people. Um, and and we just learn that along the way. Like we are very hand-holding the whole time and make sure that everybody feels comfortable. Um, and I think we're really good at that. Oh that. Yeah.

Ben Jedd:

Cory Craig, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been very enjoyable.

Cory Craig:

Thank you, Ben Jed.

Ben Jedd:

No problem.

Angie Cooksy:

That for another episode of the Bradley University podcast. It is hands down one of my favorite things to do when we get a chance to record because we get to meet people like Cory uh and hear a little bit more about what Bradley is from the seat that they sit in. So thanks everybody for joining us. Until next time.

Ben Jedd:

Bye.

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Angie Cooksy

Host
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Ben Jedd

Host
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Cory Craig

Guest