Episode 47 features The Tolkien Professor, Dr. Corey Olsen, founder and president of Signum University and the longtime host of The Tolkien Professor podcast.
We talk about Tolkien, learning, online education, and higher education. And along the way The Tolkien Professor tells the tale of the founding of Signum University from the seed of The Tolkien Professor podcast, and more.
During the episode we cover:
- Our Tolkien introductions
- Staying inspired by Tolkien
- Conversation is weather
- Starting The Tolkien Professor podcast
- The Silmarillion Seminars
- Inspirations for Signum University
- The thrill of teaching
- And much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
The Silmarillion Seminars – The Tolkien Professor
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:27:06
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. Douglas Copeland psychotic family portrait is as real as it is unflattering. Love and peace. Five music documentaries that make love to the 1960s. And I’m still on the path making progress towards I know not where this is. The Palmer Files, episode 47 with the token professor himself, Corey Olson, whose many lessons across various mediums have shared the load of token love with multitudes.
00:00:27:10 – 00:01:11:45
Agent Palmer
Oh, and he’s also the founder of Signum University and the Myth Guard Institute. We talk about all of that, plus higher education, online education, and the zen of making things. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:11:50 – 00:01:33:50
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 47th episode is the talking professor Corey Olsen, the founder and president of Signum University. What you are about to hear is how, from the seed of the Talking Professor podcast grew, the tree of Signum University and the Myth Guard Academy.
00:01:33:55 – 00:01:59:18
Agent Palmer
It is a complete story that is thrilling and I cannot wait for you to hear it. Of course, we start with token, because on that, among many other things, Corey and I have overlapping interests and continue on to discuss online education and higher education. Plus a few small meandering tangents. Before we get going, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer.
00:01:59:27 – 00:02:30:36
Agent Palmer
My guest, Corey Olsen at Talk and Prof. That’s Tolkien Prof. And this show at the Palmer Files for all things Corey you can visit talk and professor.com for all things signum you can visit Signum university.org. That’s sig and university.org. And of course your home for all things. Agent Palmer is agent palmer.com. Email can be sent to this show at the Palmer files at gmail.com.
00:02:30:41 – 00:02:41:52
Agent Palmer
So the greatest adventure is what lies ahead. Let’s go together.
00:02:41:57 – 00:03:07:33
Agent Palmer
Corey, I want to start with the easy softball. You are the Tolkien professor. You probably read other books as a child. I did. Was it about talking that? And, you know, in your small bios and stuff, it’s, you know, you don’t remember when it started, but it has endured. So I guess the question is, how has it endured?
00:03:07:34 – 00:03:17:01
Agent Palmer
I follow you on Twitter. I see you’re up to like thousands of classes and seminars and stuff. Yes. How has endured for you?
00:03:17:13 – 00:03:35:53
Dr. Corey Olsen
Well, the main thing. So it’s interesting because I actually do remember when in fact I can probably nail it to within a month. When I first read talking. But the thing is, it’s like after that, it’s all blur. It’s like I remember when I was handed the book, right, that I remember.
00:03:35:54 – 00:03:38:01
Agent Palmer
And was it the hobbit? Did you start with The Hobbit?
00:03:38:03 – 00:03:52:51
Dr. Corey Olsen
It was. It was The Hobbit. It was the Hobbit. Yeah. So I was eight, and the summer when I was seven, just about to. My birthday’s at the end of the summer, so I was about to turn eight. So it was that summer, when I was seven years old. My parents, read The Chronicles of Narnia aloud with me.
00:03:52:52 – 00:04:12:31
Dr. Corey Olsen
They really loved The Chronicles of Narnia. They were really looking forward to that, and I loved it. I mean, I was transported by The Chronicles of Narnia, and I loved The Chronicles of Narnia so much that, like, word leaked out in my extended family how much I loved The Chronicles of Narnia, like other people like my cousins heard about, okay, not from me, but like through my parents.
00:04:12:31 – 00:04:37:08
Dr. Corey Olsen
How much? I love The Chronicles of Narnia, and so my parents did not know talking at all. They had not read Tolkien. That was not in their world, big Lewis fans, but they did know talking. So one of my cousins heard the rumors about my enjoyment of the Chronicles of Narnia and at Christmas time that year, handed me my first copy of The Hobbit, which I still have on a shelf right here.
00:04:37:13 – 00:05:09:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s the it’s the purple EMU edition, which anybody who’s seen the purple emu edition will know. The cover art was done by a person who had never read Tolkien and just knew that it was vaguely fantastical and so included fantastic creatures, which for some reason includes purple emus. But, true story. Actually, that illustrator later on read the books felt mortified and actually mailed Tolkien an envelope containing an olive branch, apologizing to him for her art on the cover of his.
00:05:09:04 – 00:05:31:24
Dr. Corey Olsen
Wow. But anyway. Anyway, okay, so I was handed this copy of The Hobbit by my cousin, and he was like, I’ve heard you really like The Chronicles of Narnia. I think you’ll like this, too. And of course he was. He was quite right. But that’s when the blurb begins, because I read The Hobbit, and from then I just, I somehow relatively swiftly got a copy of the Lord of the rings as well.
00:05:31:37 – 00:05:53:15
Dr. Corey Olsen
And I just I don’t remember much about my first readings of either, because they were immediately followed by my second readings, and I, I just kind of immersed myself. And that’s the main thing. So my primary answer to your question, yeah, is the experience. What what I think makes Tolkien most special. There are a lot of things.
00:05:53:17 – 00:06:11:43
Dr. Corey Olsen
You know, it’s interesting because there are many people who read Tolkien for the first time and who have a really negative response or just like, read it and they’re like, what even is I can’t even get into this. Like what? This is so like it’s boring. There’s like pages and pages of landscape description, like, how does anybody like this?
00:06:11:43 – 00:06:34:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. There’s a lot of people that I know, and respect who respond that way to Tolkien, and that’s perfectly fine. I mean, honestly, I feel anybody who, who feels that way when they read Tolkien like, I, I, I get it. What it means is that we don’t kind of read the same way. Like we don’t look for the same things out of books, you know, and that’s fine.
00:06:34:02 – 00:06:51:35
Dr. Corey Olsen
And if you’re if you’re not into like, what talking is, is like an immersive experience. Right? And if you you don’t you’re not up for that. If you’re looking for like swift action and you know, like rapid, engaging character development, that’s not what you’re getting in Tolkien. He’s not that kind of writer. It’s not that kind of story.
00:06:51:40 – 00:07:14:24
Dr. Corey Olsen
But what you find when you talk to Tolkien fans, which, of course, I’ve been doing quite a lot over the last decade. Right. One of the clearest patterns that emerges and it emerges really, really powerfully is true. Tolkien fans, like people who, you know, mention the Lord of the rings on their, you know, like social media profile blurbs and things like that.
00:07:14:24 – 00:07:38:18
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? Yeah, those kinds of people. They are not just fans of the books. They’re not just they don’t just like the stories. They don’t just have favorite characters. They are in love with Middle-Earth itself. Right? It’s just it’s part of the immersive experience of it is for those who, you know, can sort of read it this way for those who, who kind of enjoy things in this way.
00:07:38:23 – 00:08:17:40
Dr. Corey Olsen
Tolkien’s works are like this, this doorway, right? This charming green painted round doorway into this completely different world. I say completely different, which is not quite fair. Of course, many points of contact with our world, which is one of the things that makes it so compelling. There are many works, of fantasy. You think of other wonderful works of fantasy, which are doorways to worlds, which are quite much more different from our world, places like, The Wizard of Earthsea, for instance, by Ursula Le Guin or, anyway, but but, nevertheless, Tolkiens world is just this sort of enthralling place to be.
00:08:17:53 – 00:08:39:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
And there’s so, so therefore it’s not like, again, some some people will ask me, some people ask me a question very similar to the one you ask, though not nearly so polite. Because they’ll ask it like, how do you just keep talking about this same book over and over and over again for years and years and years?
00:08:39:13 – 00:09:06:33
Dr. Corey Olsen
Doesn’t that get boring? And the answer is no. Again, just because of the kind of book that it is. And this is not unique to Tolkien, there are many works which are like this, right? You know, great works of creative genius in general. Right? They are they are a way of discovering things like, I don’t feel like I’m somebody who’s just discussing, I don’t know, a film script or something like that.
00:09:06:33 – 00:09:30:37
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. I’m, I’m you feel like somebody who is, imagine being I don’t know, maybe you are like a park ranger at Yellowstone or something like that. Right. And you lead tours through Yellowstone National Park? I have never been to Yellowstone National Park, but it’s, very beautiful and quite large, as I understand. Yeah, I think both of those things are true.
00:09:30:46 – 00:09:51:09
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. Well, if you were a park ranger who had fallen in love with the park, right, you just you love this country. You love this area. I don’t think you would ever get tired of leading tours through it, because there’s always more to see. There’s always more to discover. Like, you just. It’s not like. It’s not like, you know, taking a turn around the block or something like that.
00:09:51:16 – 00:09:53:53
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. And Tolkiens stories and world are like that.
00:09:53:53 – 00:10:23:22
Agent Palmer
And I feel like for you, because, you know, there’s an argument that at least Yellowstone, there’s weather. But for you, it’s the conversation with fans. And I find that as I have gotten older and I’ve talked to people that have consumed any kind of media, the media changes based on the conversations you have, whether you both like it, whether you disagree and somebody likes it, somebody doesn’t, whether somebody loves it.
00:10:23:22 – 00:10:29:31
Agent Palmer
And it was just okay. Those different perspectives are the weather to Yellowstone. They change your perspective.
00:10:29:31 – 00:10:31:15
Dr. Corey Olsen
Absolutely. But absolutely.
00:10:31:15 – 00:10:38:55
Agent Palmer
I want to go back for a moment. You read The Hobbit on your own after having your parents read. Yeah, Narnia to The.
00:10:38:55 – 00:10:39:42
Dr. Corey Olsen
Chronicles of Narnia.
00:10:39:42 – 00:11:10:40
Agent Palmer
Yeah. My introduction to Tolkien was literally your introduction to Narnia. My father read The Hobbit to me right around seven, eight, nine somewhere in there, and then we read it might have been later than that. All I know is it lines up that we did The Hobbit, then The Fellowship, then The Two Towers, and by the time we’re into The Two Towers to get my reading comprehension up, we’re trading the book back and forth, reading it to each other.
00:11:10:45 – 00:11:33:20
Agent Palmer
And then in sixth grade, I found a friend who was reading it, and I couldn’t wait for my father anymore because obviously schedules are not like we’re not reading it like you would normally read a book. But, so I was I finished the fellowship without him, and there’s a part of me that’s like. Like I’m impatient, right?
00:11:33:21 – 00:11:56:44
Agent Palmer
That’s not news to anyone who meets me. And I got to, like, experience those early conversations of fandom with a friend in sixth grade. But I do. Looking back decades on, I feel like I and I don’t know, I don’t know if I’ve ever really talked to my father about it, but I feel like I should have finished reading it with him.
00:11:56:49 – 00:12:22:32
Agent Palmer
Like, I just feel like it’s incomplete. We didn’t finish it together. We started this journey together. We didn’t finish it together. I have not reviewed, I have maybe I’ve revisited The Hobbit as a book, maybe once since then. I haven’t picked up the Lord of the rings since then I just, and I will. I have just started rereading books and I mean just.
00:12:22:32 – 00:12:45:42
Agent Palmer
I reread Jurassic Park in the Lost World in the last year for the first time, and basically since they first came out and I read a few things, like because I had read them right before I started my blog and I wanted to review them. But I’m starting to get to a place, and I don’t know what possessed me to pick up Jurassic Park again.
00:12:45:45 – 00:12:54:00
Agent Palmer
You know what I mean, right? But I’m starting to get to a place where I’m in such a I’m such a different person than I was that.
00:12:54:09 – 00:12:54:34
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yes.
00:12:54:43 – 00:13:16:55
Agent Palmer
There are books and you know, The Hobbit, Lord of the rings is on that list. It’s these are books that meant something to me back then. What will they mean to me now? I’m a completely different person. Right? And how will they hit me? Which is the other part of the the whether and how you can endure different with you at different times.
00:13:16:55 – 00:13:26:52
Agent Palmer
It absolutely. But you are taking it another step because you’re, you’re actively having these conversations and you create like lesson plans and stuff.
00:13:26:52 – 00:14:02:37
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s yeah, it’s so to some extent teaching the the key of it is exactly what you said. The key of it is the interaction with other people. When I am talking with students about, I don’t know what, 60 or 70% of the delight of talking with students about talking and and other things as well. I enjoy teaching many things, but but but focusing on talking, you know, 60, 70% at least, of the pleasure that comes from sort of seeing through other people’s eyes, hearing their observations, because people are always noticing that.
00:14:02:38 – 00:14:22:10
Dr. Corey Olsen
I mean, I have read these books a lot of times, I mean, I have read them at least once a year since I was eight and on average probably a good deal more because they make a point of reading them once a year. And then if I’m teaching that book or if I’m, I’m writing on on it, I’ll be reading it, you know, again in the middle, as well.
00:14:22:10 – 00:14:38:09
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I’m sure I have average more than once a year since I was eight. And yet they’re all students every single time I teach. And this has always been true. Every single time I teach somebody, this is something that I’ve never noticed before or says something that I put something together that has gone over my head every single time.
00:14:38:09 – 00:15:05:37
Dr. Corey Olsen
So that’s, that’s, that’s that’s huge. That’s huge. And the, the opportunity to, to sort of to hear that and to see that and to encounter them in a, in a new, in a really different way. The other 30 to 40% I find is to me, it’s like it’s the magic of teaching. It’s what I love about teaching. It’s why I, I’ve never, for a while, I tried to run because I’d heard about this runner’s high thing, and that sounded pretty cool, but I.
00:15:05:37 – 00:15:11:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
I don’t believe in it anymore. Like, I don’t I don’t get it. It doesn’t happen for me. Like, I don’t, I don’t know, I.
00:15:11:46 – 00:15:23:24
Agent Palmer
Am a runner. I do not find it either the the closest I come is I might be able to get out of my own head for five minutes, but I wouldn’t classify that as a runner’s like as a high.
00:15:23:35 – 00:15:39:39
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, no, I just don’t like people report this physiological sensation, which I’ve always felt ripped off, that I don’t have. So I’ve, I’ve but I’ve long ago given up on the whole running thing because there’s no point. But anyway, yeah, I mean if I’m not going to get a high why why bother. But but but however like teaching now there right.
00:15:39:49 – 00:16:03:09
Dr. Corey Olsen
There’s there’s a, that is something that is always, just such an amazing experience for me because I find like, it’s not only that, I, I learn things from my students, you know, again, that’s that’s the majority of it. But also when I’m in an A, in an environment where I’m explaining things to people and I’m talking to them, I’m answering questions.
00:16:03:14 – 00:16:22:32
Dr. Corey Olsen
I cannot tell you how many times in the classroom or, you know, in online sessions. So, you know, the teaching that I do, somebody asks a question and I don’t even think about it. They ask a question and I start answering the question. And yet the thing I say, and I’m aware of it like a part of my mind, is conscious of the fact the words coming out of my I’ve never thought before, like, I have no idea.
00:16:22:35 – 00:16:37:18
Dr. Corey Olsen
I did not know the answer to that question until it was asked. Right. And the person asked the question, and I’m giving an answer. And there’s a part of my mind like, I like listening to myself. Sure. Yeah, that’s kind of interesting. I, I’ve never really thought about that before, like, but that I mean, that’s the magic.
00:16:37:18 – 00:16:56:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s the magic of teaching. Like the the way that the way that things just emerge, right. When you’re in that kind of environment and students and teachers are coming together. There’s just this magic that emerges that is so much it is so much more than just like, let me bestow my prepackaged wisdom to you, upon you.
00:16:56:02 – 00:17:16:47
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? Or or or even or even, you know, the more the more generous. Kind of like, let me hear from the student and learn from the student, you know, both of those things kind of happen. But but the real. So anyway, so for me, we are again, when people are kind of scratching their heads as to why I can still enjoy talking about the same book over and over again for so many years.
00:17:16:52 – 00:17:26:20
Dr. Corey Olsen
Part of it is, I get it. You don’t really understand about talking, but I like part of it is, you know, understand what it’s like being a teacher either, you know, that’s just part of the magic.
00:17:26:27 – 00:17:54:54
Agent Palmer
So for some context, right, I was a problem student, especially when you go back into, like, middle and high school, because I was right. I was a I don’t know what the words are now, but so I’ll just say the words as then I was a smart, unmotivated kid who sure, I had more fun challenging teachers by asking questions they didn’t have answers to.
00:17:54:59 – 00:18:20:56
Agent Palmer
Then I did. So just spitting back the correct answer and yes, I was in a rural school district where that was kind of not the thing I they weren’t going to like me. And, you know, you know, I escaped that lucky enough for myself. But you seem to have that kind of, it’s the discussion. It’s the it’s the engagement part.
00:18:20:58 – 00:18:44:36
Agent Palmer
Not looking. I understand, as I’m saying this now to the world at large. Right. Like I understand the facts are important. And you there are there are there are theories and, you know, rules and systems and, and and that kind of stuff that need to be conveyed. But the engagement is the important part. And I really feel like that gets lost.
00:18:44:41 – 00:18:51:55
Agent Palmer
Can I not to put too many words in your mouth. Is that why you founded Signum University?
00:18:51:59 – 00:19:15:15
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yes. It is ultimately. So there I didn’t in in one way, I did plan it. You know, that was a conscious decision on the back ground. When I started Signum. In another way, it kind of grew organically. But it was still that motivation all along. So, let me back up. I’ll tell the Signum story.
00:19:15:20 – 00:19:35:47
Dr. Corey Olsen
If you don’t mind, I’ll back up and tell kind of the longish version of this, because it builds on exactly the stuff that we’ve been talking about. Yeah, because it all begins with when I started my podcast. And you can see already the seeds of what eventually was going to become Signum University when I began my podcast, because ultimately my podcast began when I was a junior professor.
00:19:35:52 – 00:19:53:10
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I was about halfway through the tenure process, and I had, I’d been I’d, you know, I published a couple things, and I was, you know, I was being strongly encouraged by my department chair and my colleagues, and my dean, to publish more things. Well, hold on, but quick.
00:19:53:15 – 00:20:03:55
Agent Palmer
Is the tenure track something at this point you want? Because I understood I think that that’s like, right now. Well, no. Then then. Oh then. Yeah. Because that’s.
00:20:04:09 – 00:20:05:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
Then it was that’s.
00:20:05:07 – 00:20:14:42
Agent Palmer
A game you have to play. Right. Like it’s not just. Oh yeah, it’s it’s very political. I mean, I know we’re not going to get into it, but I oh my goodness it’s okay. So at this time.
00:20:14:57 – 00:20:16:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
But you’re absolutely right. Yeah.
00:20:16:03 – 00:20:17:08
Agent Palmer
It’s time. You’re on time.
00:20:17:08 – 00:20:51:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
I was yeah I was, I was, I was, I was in the system and I was playing the game. Oh absolutely. Absolutely. I yeah, I will admit it’s, I thought if you would ask me at that point, I don’t think I would have said because I don’t think that I realized how stifled I felt within the system and playing the game and how much more, fun and how much more lovely it has been to, spend the last ten years bucking the system and creating an entirely parallel system that, checks most of the traditional stuff out the window.
00:20:51:07 – 00:21:10:20
Dr. Corey Olsen
I’ve loved that. But but but that’s not what motivated me. At the time, I wasn’t, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was a good boy back in those days. Well, mostly, as I see, this was the point at which I began to misbehave because my problem was with scholarly publication, because, I’m publishing on medieval literature.
00:21:10:20 – 00:21:42:29
Dr. Corey Olsen
But I also began publishing on Tolkien, and I got frustrated by scholarly publication, mostly because that phrase scholar publication. I came to see that as a kind of oxymoron, in a sense, because to publish something means to make it public, right? But scholarly journals are not, in fact, public. They are rigidly restricted. I mean, only scholarly libraries get scholarly journals and scholarly libraries don’t let other people in.
00:21:42:42 – 00:22:06:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
So in fact, I, I was frustrated by the fact that I was not publishing my work. I was privatizing my work. Right? I was, I was, I was hiding my work and the prospect of a long career in which I was going to dedicate years and years and years of my life to produce work which should only be read by the same 50 people around the world.
00:22:06:03 – 00:22:10:23
Dr. Corey Olsen
Every time began to feel, to me, frustrating.
00:22:10:23 – 00:22:11:35
Agent Palmer
All right. So especially.
00:22:11:35 – 00:22:12:10
Dr. Corey Olsen
Since.
00:22:12:10 – 00:22:12:38
Agent Palmer
I.
00:22:12:40 – 00:22:13:39
Dr. Corey Olsen
Was writing on Tolkien.
00:22:13:48 – 00:22:45:28
Agent Palmer
I want to ask because I feel like I need to. Are there even 50 people that read those things because I’m looking like I’m I’m here like, I, you know, I got I got my bachelor’s degree and I got out of there and I haven’t really like I’ve toyed with the idea of going back, but like when I hear scholarly anything, I just think, okay, your committee or your whatever group you have that helped you get that going, read it.
00:22:45:33 – 00:22:51:23
Agent Palmer
But you put it somewhere and then it collects dust. It’s like the the Indiana Jones like I don’t.
00:22:51:23 – 00:23:13:38
Dr. Corey Olsen
Exactly, exactly. That’s just how I felt. And yeah, so I said 50 to be generous. I didn’t want to sound mean, you know, and I’m not I don’t want people to feel like I’m trying to. This scholarly publishing, scholarly work is really important. And and even like if there are 50 or 30 or 15 people who read it, like, still like the conversation among scholars is really important and stuff.
00:23:13:38 – 00:23:35:14
Dr. Corey Olsen
But so I didn’t want to lose that. But at the same time I’m like, but that’s not all there is, right? That like, that can’t be all that there is. Especially since I again, I’m writing on Tolkien. Right. And so I’m sitting there and I’m like, this just feels absurd, right? I’m writing stuff about this author that I know there are thousands of people out there who are really interested in this.
00:23:35:14 – 00:23:57:23
Dr. Corey Olsen
And I began to say to myself, you know, I bet, I bet there are hundreds, maybe even a thousand people who might be interested to read about it. Not because I had such a high opinion of my own writing. But I’m like, this isn’t engaging. This isn’t. So I began to think, what else can I do? Instead of just sending my stuff into a scholarly journal?
00:23:57:23 – 00:24:14:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
What else can I do so that. So that’s when I decided to start my podcast. So I started my podcast. I first began working on this back in 2007. It didn’t really officially launch until 2009, because I had no idea what to do or how to do it, because podcasting was barely even a thing that it was.
00:24:14:44 – 00:24:24:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
It was brand new and, you know, I started off with this idea of like just having a website and releasing stuff on the website, but that was awkward to make a casting, though.
00:24:24:03 – 00:24:28:10
Agent Palmer
I mean, you could have just been like, here’s a blog of my thoughts.
00:24:28:10 – 00:24:49:32
Dr. Corey Olsen
That was the other option. The other option was a blog. And I thought about it. I thought about writing a blog, but I wanted, I’m a total audio file. I do everything, by audio and also, I mean, I like writing, and I feel like my I feel like I’m reasonably successful in communicating what I want to communicate by writing, but it’s not my true medium.
00:24:49:36 – 00:25:12:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like the classroom. Classroom teaching is my true medium, you know? And I’m like, I want to be able to talk to people. Okay, so I definitely wanted to do audio files. And so I ended up, you know, starting the podcast again. It officially began in 2009. So I threw it out there saying, okay, what’s because I, my theory is that there will be a wider audience more than the 50, the generous 50.
00:25:12:49 – 00:25:35:24
Dr. Corey Olsen
Who would be interested in this? Of course. It turns out I radically underestimated the interest in this kind of thing. Because. So I started the podcast, right? And I didn’t have any. I was doing all this stuff myself. I coded an XML, feed file. I learned how to do that online and did that. My myself was really clumsy and everything.
00:25:35:29 – 00:26:08:36
Dr. Corey Olsen
And so every day I would just look at, like, the, you know, the number of, like, you know, megabytes that had been downloaded to see how many, you know, how many downloads I’ve gotten. And so I remember was like, 2 or 3 weeks into my podcast, I had two or I think I had two episodes up and, I, you know, when downstairs every morning and logged in and checked my numbers and, you know, every day I was getting about, somewhere between 20 and 30 downloads a day, you know, when I first launched it and everything.
00:26:08:36 – 00:26:31:01
Dr. Corey Olsen
And I was like, okay. And then I went down one morning, two and a half weeks after I launched, and I had 3500 downloads and I’m like, Holy cow, what? I’m. And it turns out I got put on the new and notable list on Apple Podcasts. And like from then it was it was ridiculous. It was absolutely ridiculous.
00:26:31:01 – 00:26:38:10
Dr. Corey Olsen
You know, I had I was doing I was doing, you know, tens of I had I had a million total downloads within six months. It was crazy.
00:26:38:14 – 00:26:41:37
Agent Palmer
Because what you like, you were basically proven right.
00:26:41:52 – 00:27:03:36
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, yeah, I was and that was fun. And but what I discovered was basically that kind of drew my attention to a phenomenon that I hadn’t really anticipated. Like, I knew that there were lots of Tolkien fans out there who might be interested to read, you know, like, you know, a detailed scholarly analysis of Tolkien’s work.
00:27:03:41 – 00:27:22:18
Dr. Corey Olsen
It was my, my, my walk through The Hobbit, my careful as like an eight part series on The Hobbit wasn’t the first thing I released, so I wasn’t surprised to find that that was the case. The thing that I learned, the thing that really kind of took me back, was the tone in. I started getting emails from people, right, who are who are listening.
00:27:22:23 – 00:27:44:42
Dr. Corey Olsen
And the tone of those emails was what I didn’t expect. I was, of course, pleased. You know, it’s hard not to be pleased and flattered when you’re getting emails saying, oh, you know, that was awesome. I think your stuff is great. But what I wasn’t expecting was the particular kind of gratitude that people were expecting. What I kept hearing from people was, I thank you so much for doing this.
00:27:44:42 – 00:28:12:55
Dr. Corey Olsen
This is like a kind of refreshment I haven’t had. I’ve been out of college for 15 years and, like I haven’t, I haven’t been learning like I have had no opportunity to to, you know, like it’s so refreshing to, like, be doing this kind of intellectual work. I haven’t had any outlet for this. And there was a there was a thirst for this kind of intellectual engagement that most people, you know, out grinding their way through the working world.
00:28:12:55 – 00:28:20:49
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? Years after they’d graduated from college, the vast majority of my most dedicated listeners were ages 40 to 70.
00:28:20:49 – 00:28:49:34
Agent Palmer
Can I begin? I want to try and put a finger on the Zeit Geist for a moment back then, because what I remember is the 2007 2009 we’re a we’re years removed from return of the King as a feature film from Peter Jackson. And what I remember of those three films, especially among my book reading Tolkien fans, is, what are these people doing?
00:28:49:34 – 00:29:16:18
Agent Palmer
They don’t know. They don’t know this. They don’t. They only know a piece of it. And to me, you are feeling that void of like, oh, yes. Okay, you know what? This is something that the people who watch the movies won’t get. This is for me. And and I’m not saying that that’s good or bad. And, you know, I’m sure there are some people that listen to watch the movies, listen to your show, and then read the books.
00:29:16:23 – 00:29:43:27
Agent Palmer
But there was a very large dichotomy of like, I read the books, I liked the movies and like it was it was in us, in them. And it shouldn’t have been. Right. It it’s Tolkien, it’s for everybody. Right. Like I right. There are phenomenons in that era where I go my father tells me about like what was it, the late 60s, early 70s, where Frodo lives, came back like.
00:29:43:32 – 00:29:44:59
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:45:04 – 00:29:56:35
Agent Palmer
Why can’t we all just get along? But there was this moment where it was like, you can’t just be a talking fan. You have to read the books. And yes, you definitely appealed to that.
00:29:56:40 – 00:30:18:15
Dr. Corey Olsen
Definitely. No. I mean, that’s that was I do agree that there were lots of people who were certainly delighted to get the kind. And also, I would say people, because it had been enough time, right, that there were there were many, many people who watched the film. I had never read Tolkien, watch the films, loved the films, then went and read Tolkien and became new fans of the books after that.
00:30:18:25 – 00:30:48:38
Dr. Corey Olsen
And so we’re excited to find a way to kind of go further. Right. And sort of, you know, get get an even deeper immersion, into Tolkien world after that. So kind of picking up on the momentum, right, of those people also, I think certainly, certainly helped in some ways, but but like I said, it was it was beyond even talking fandom, though, it was this question of just simple intellectual stimulation like, this is this is the kind this is not just entertainment, you know, this is this is learning.
00:30:48:38 – 00:31:11:23
Dr. Corey Olsen
And my brain can feel the difference, right. And there were very there were so many fewer opportunities for that kind of thing back. There were some right things like, the Great Books series or the Great Courses series. I mean, the Great Courses series, you know, that started like on audio tapes way back when. So there were a few opportunities like that, and some people who were kind of plugging into that kind of thing.
00:31:11:28 – 00:31:38:34
Dr. Corey Olsen
But again, in the and nowadays, of course, podcasts have done a wonderful job of making this kind of thing available on many different levels for lots and lots of people, and I’ve been delighted to see that. But again, but back then, it was, it was a new thing. And so that was one of the things that that was one of the the first and most important things that and ended up, pushing me down the road that led, to this crazy, crazy plan of founding my own university.
00:31:38:39 – 00:31:58:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
Because in response to those people, what I started doing. So instead of just I used to just prerecord on my, you know, like a normal podcaster, I used to pre-record all my sessions, you know, and edit them really carefully and everything and then release them. But what I found myself wanting to do is more and more live interaction, more and more like real teaching kinds of things.
00:31:58:44 – 00:32:32:41
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I started using Skype and and other possibilities to, and I was completely making stuff up back then. And this was before almost any of the, the, you know, the video conferencing software existed back then. So, you know, I started just with, Skype and a couple other things and, and just trying to do some, like, audio calling shows and things like that where I was interacting with people more, the turning point of my career, to quote The Hobbit, the turning point of my that’s what Tolkien says when Bilbo finds the ring, it puts his hand on the ring in the dark.
00:32:32:50 – 00:32:53:46
Dr. Corey Olsen
It was the turning point of his career, but he didn’t know it. And the same was true of me when I started The Silmarillion seminar. One of my teaching goals had been Tolkien. Silmarillion is so The Silmarillion. For people who don’t know, Tolkien is the collection of the ancient myths and history of the elder days of middle earth.
00:32:53:51 – 00:33:14:29
Dr. Corey Olsen
So this is stuff that is like thousands of years in the past from the point of view of the Lord of the rings. And this is actually the material that Tolkien first wrote, like when he was in his 20s, he was writing, making up these like, he was making up a new mythology and the myths and legends of that mythology and the Lord of the rings, actually, in its way, indirectly grew out of that.
00:33:14:33 – 00:33:43:45
Dr. Corey Olsen
But it The Hobbit gets published, and then the Lord of the rings gets published, and the Silmarillion didn’t get published until after Tolkien died, and then his son Christopher went back and edited his papers and released The Silmarillion. But it’s really hard, like, really hard. It’s even for Tolkien fans, it is. There’s this sort of famous experience that almost everybody who discovers and begins to love, talking passionately as a child has when they discover The Silmarillion and they read it saying, great, look, more Tolkien.
00:33:43:45 – 00:33:49:52
Dr. Corey Olsen
And they start reading it and they’re like, whoa, okay. And they don’t make it past like chapter two. I mean, when.
00:33:49:57 – 00:34:06:12
Agent Palmer
You’re saying that now and I know I gave it a few shots, I don’t know if I ever deleted it. I’m sure I’ve read it, come back and like page through it, I don’t know, but I know I gave it a like I gave it a fair shot, but it’s like, yeah. Oh, and what.
00:34:06:12 – 00:34:07:00
Dr. Corey Olsen
Is difficult.
00:34:07:09 – 00:34:32:23
Agent Palmer
I think one of the bigger hurdles, especially from my perspective, is I came to it at ten, 12, 14 like it’s you can get through The Hobbit and The Lord of the rings because, you know, even if it’s like 20 pages of landscape, like you said, or like, you know, this, that or the other thing, eventually the story moves, but with the similarly and it’s such a, it’s such a different text.
00:34:32:23 – 00:34:50:15
Agent Palmer
It’s like, it’s like if we went, I don’t know, I you’re going to go see a Star Trek film, but it’s completely based in the wild, wild West with no tech at all. Like, it’s it might still the characters might be the same, but your expectations are completely.
00:34:50:15 – 00:35:14:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s yeah, the genre is totally different. It’s like it’s not a novel at all. I mean, the Lord of the rings isn’t really a novel either, but it’s it’s. Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s it’s told on a completely different level. It’s like. It’s exactly. In fact, it’s designed to be like, you go into a particularly dusty corner of a library and you find this old book that nobody’s read in, like dozens or hundreds of years.
00:35:14:55 – 00:35:36:06
Dr. Corey Olsen
And it’s this collection of old histories and legends written by somebody who lived centuries ago in a style very different from your own. But like the kind of wonder of discovering, right, this, like, collection of myths and legends of ancient works, it’s really cool, but very different and very challenging to read.
00:35:36:08 – 00:35:56:26
Agent Palmer
It’s the reason, you know what? You just put it to you just explain to me why the only people I know who read The Silmarillion were Dungeon Masters. Like, those are the people who are who have no problem reading like a Dungeon Master guide that has no story at all. It’s just myth and legend and then they go, yeah, I read it.
00:35:56:31 – 00:35:58:17
Agent Palmer
It was fine. Well, I don’t know what your problem is.
00:35:58:17 – 00:36:24:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
Exactly, exactly. No, that makes all kinds of sense. All kinds of sense. So, so this teaching project that I had wanted to do was I wanted to do this, this sort of seminar in support group for people reading The Silmarillion. Just kind of go chapter by chapter through The Silmarillion and help people who had never finished reading it before kind of get through it, talk our way through it, think about, you know, the themes and how the story is developing and, and kind of kind of work through it together.
00:36:24:48 – 00:36:43:56
Dr. Corey Olsen
And so I decided to make that the first time ever that I would attempt to do a full classroom type thing live and on the internet. So I just posted on my Facebook, my talk about their Facebook page one day, and it was like the day before Thanksgiving, like I chose the worst possible day on which to do this, right?
00:36:44:03 – 00:37:04:35
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like the day before Thanksgiving, I post on my Facebook page and say, hey, who wants to participate in a Silmarillion seminar? I’ll I’ll just take like the first 24 people who email me and we’ll, we’ll do it. And so I got emails from people in four different continents, you know, we were and we were on. And so we made a time which was a various conveniences to various people.
00:37:04:45 – 00:37:31:35
Dr. Corey Olsen
And we met every week, and we worked through and I recorded the sessions. You can still hear them on my podcast, The Old Silmarillion seminar. And it was it changed my life, completely changed my life. Because what it what I, what I learned from there. If you had I had heard of online education this was 2010. Now that I was doing The Silmarillion seminar, I believe it was Thanksgiving of 2009 that I sent out that message.
00:37:31:35 – 00:37:55:48
Dr. Corey Olsen
We started up like in January of 2010, 2010 online education was a thing, but it was like the University of Phoenix and a few other places like it, right? I mean, what it was, you know, sort of unashamedly right. It went online. Education was basically correspondence courses, like the good old fashioned 19th century correspondence courses made a little bit more efficient through the internet.
00:37:55:48 – 00:38:18:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? Yeah. And that was basically the model for online education. And if you had asked me in like, I don’t know, January of 2009, right, could you see yourself leaving, you know, your tenure track job and just teaching online full time? I would have been like, are you insane? Like classroom interactions? Like, that’s that’s my runner’s high. Like, forget about it.
00:38:18:04 – 00:38:40:34
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like, I, I’ve got to have it, you know? And that was the way in which The Silmarillion seminar changed my life, because what I discovered was the magic happens over the internet. The magic happens, right? You can’t when you bring students together in that kind of. And you’re able to have discussions and engage with this, that whole series, you know, and it went on for a while.
00:38:40:36 – 00:39:01:19
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s like the whole year. I don’t remember exactly how many sessions now. I’m forgetting how many sessions The Silmarillion seminar was, but it was maybe like 25 sessions, something like that. For so it was, it was, it was like six months, you know, at least that we were doing that maybe more. And it was this magic like, and the chemistry among the, you know, who are all sitting at their computers everywhere.
00:39:01:19 – 00:39:25:42
Dr. Corey Olsen
And again, this didn’t happen. Like, I don’t know, anywhere in the world that was like doing this yet, you know, back in 2010, and we were using this really primitive, kind of, webinar software with no video capabilities at all, just audio and text. And it was magical, like the chemistry among the students was so strong that there are still like, reunions like this.
00:39:25:53 – 00:39:50:13
Dr. Corey Olsen
You know, the students who are in the so early in seminar. And it completely changed my life because it opened my eyes to the possibilities like, wow, okay. And I just I kind of sat back after this, rolling seminar was over and really before it had ended. And I was like, this, this changes everything. This is incredible because I can immediately see if you can have this kind of an educational experience over the internet.
00:39:50:13 – 00:40:09:32
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, right. Online education, the way that people have been doing online education, that’s kind of, you know, like whatever it’s it has its uses. Right? It’s it’s it has it for people who are like self-starters. And all they need is like, just provide me the information and I can work my way through it. Awesome. Like, I don’t I’m not trying to dis it, but I know that it’s not for most people.
00:40:09:37 – 00:40:29:43
Dr. Corey Olsen
You know that a lot of people just don’t thrive learning that way. But I was doing this and I’m like this, this is a game changer. This is like a game changer for all of higher education. Right? Because I could immediately see the implications of this. And I’m like, look, we can have classrooms with no geographical boundaries.
00:40:29:49 – 00:40:47:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
We don’t have to be like, here we are on our little campus. And if you want to come take classes with us, you’ve got to find some way to schlep all the way down to. You know, I was teaching on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Maryland. And so, you know, people familiar with Maryland will know what that means.
00:40:47:04 – 00:41:14:26
Dr. Corey Olsen
It is there’s like more deer than people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It is very, very it’s just cornfields. Just cornfields, nothing but cornfields over there. Well, cornfields and soybean fields and nothing else. And, but I’m like, you don’t have to come here to do that. Right? And if you look at even now, higher institutions of higher education are still like even big ones are stay still primarily draw from their local geography.
00:41:14:26 – 00:41:33:52
Dr. Corey Olsen
I mean, it’s the people who live near them still, by and large, who tend to go there. And I’m like, hey, forget that. We can teach. We can have classes. Absolutely, irrespective of geography. That’s really exciting. And then I had the second insight where I said, wait a second, we can do this for a fraction of the price.
00:41:33:57 – 00:41:55:46
Dr. Corey Olsen
I could do this. I could because this doesn’t cost me anything. I don’t have to maintain a building. Yeah, I don’t have to. And so full of enthusiasm, I set up a meeting with my college president and I’m like, okay, I got to tell you about this experience I’ve been having. I think, like, we should try this. We should fully synchronous, interactive online education.
00:41:55:59 – 00:42:17:12
Dr. Corey Olsen
This is the education of the 21st century, man. We have got to do this. And we even had this little program at my college. We had this little this little master’s degree program with a very, very small number of students. It was primarily just a master’s degree program started at that school, so that local school teachers who wanted to get their master’s degree could do it there, instead of driving all the way around to Baltimore.
00:42:17:17 – 00:42:34:05
Dr. Corey Olsen
Okay. So, so it’s this tiny little, tiny little program, right? And I’m like, this is perfect. Like what? The pilot. This in that little program, I would never think you don’t have to do it in the big flagship undergrad program. Just, just just just in the little master’s degree. Let’s just try it out. Right. And and he wouldn’t he wouldn’t go.
00:42:34:09 – 00:42:53:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
He wouldn’t he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t he wouldn’t let me do it. He didn’t want to do anything with it. Wasn’t interested because he was afraid it was going to undercut their brand. And because he could also see the same thing that I could see, which is the money thing. Except for him, that wasn’t a selling point. Well, yeah, it was an antique.
00:42:53:11 – 00:43:03:32
Agent Palmer
It was the, you know, the lack of whatever profit you get from room and board and books, physical books and the reselling of used books and the buying back of the all, all of it.
00:43:03:37 – 00:43:26:31
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah. And the justification of the tuition. Right. Because if you’re coming in from home and we’re charging you this like, you know, how can we have the face to charge this much money? Not like don’t get me wrong, colleges are not. Some people think, some people outside higher education have the vague idea that colleges because they I mean, they can kind of do the math, right?
00:43:26:31 – 00:43:46:00
Dr. Corey Olsen
They’re like, okay, I know how much they charge right now. They’re charging, like $50,000. And they’ve got like 10,000 students. So they do the math and they’re like, Holy cow, they have so much money. So there’s this, you know, some people have this idea that colleges are just, like rolling in money. And although they do have very large revenues, their costs are extremely high.
00:43:46:00 – 00:44:14:38
Dr. Corey Olsen
I mean, their margins are very, very small, very small. And, and it’s it’s tough. They’re in a difficult position now. It’s kind of their own fault, but they’re in this position. My sympathy is limited for their sufferings. But there are legitimate difficulties that they’re in. So, of course, as you remember again, 2010, remembering the context, this is also not the very beginning, but it’s near the beginning of when the student debt crisis began to be talked about on the national level.
00:44:14:42 – 00:44:48:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
The 2012 election was the first campaign presidential campaign that I remember any presidential candidate talking about the student debt, like really making that a talking point. There was, how I’m forgetting his names. I can barely remember the names of successful politicians, much less the people who lose. But the guy I think the governor of Texas, who was running in 2000 for 2012 on the, on the Republican ticket, who was one of the things that he was he was like, we’re going to, you know, make tuition under $10,000 a year.
00:44:48:02 – 00:45:08:54
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like it was one of the things that he was talking about, he had, so far as I could tell, no plan whatsoever for how he was going to do that. But that was one of the things that he kept saying anyway. So when the my college president said they had no interest because they were afraid they were going to undercut their bottom line and and undermine their brand, I said, would you mind if I try?
00:45:09:08 – 00:45:28:40
Dr. Corey Olsen
I, you know, I if I start, you know, a little program of my own. And he said, oh no, no, go for it. By which he obviously and in retrospect, he obviously meant, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be able to succeed in doing that. So I’m going to magnanimously say, I’m not going to forbid you because it’s obviously not going to work.
00:45:28:40 – 00:45:31:01
Dr. Corey Olsen
So knock yourself out, dude. But.
00:45:31:01 – 00:45:41:32
Agent Palmer
He didn’t make you leave, though, like you were able to at the at the time. At least you’re able to stay on tenure track and do this on your own time. This is your hobby now.
00:45:41:37 – 00:46:02:33
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s my hobby. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. He said with a paternal and indulgent smile. I could go ahead and do that. And again, it was clear because he thought he was pretty sure that it would never work. He and I had a rather different conversation about a year and a half later, when it had in fact begun to work, and I had succeeded in actually doing the thing.
00:46:02:38 – 00:46:08:40
Dr. Corey Olsen
And then he, his attitude towards it was, different. But.
00:46:08:45 – 00:46:08:59
Agent Palmer
But.
00:46:08:59 – 00:46:30:55
Dr. Corey Olsen
Anyway, so I decided to start my own teaching program and again, and so the, the tuition thing that was the thing that actually so there were basically two elements of it. One was the teaching environment. Right. Just seeing that this kind of teaching and learning as possible online, this should happen. And I’m looking around, I’m like, surely sure.
00:46:30:55 – 00:47:01:23
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like this is relatively new technology, but it’s not like unique technology. It exists. Right? Lots of people have access to it. Surely universities are doing this, right? Online schools like Phoenix and everything were making a lot of money, right? I’m like, this is there’s clearly a market out there for online education. And this, this is. So I started joking and calling my version of this sort of live synchronous, you know, what is, you know, remote learning, though, goodness knows it’s not,
00:47:01:28 – 00:47:24:09
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah. Better than has been done at most poor places during the pandemic, but, for which I can’t blame them. But anyway, like I from the beginning, I called this Online Education 2.0. I’m like, now it’s time to like, this is what online education this is, this is, this is where, where we need to go an online education and I’m looking around and I’m like, somebody’s got to do this.
00:47:24:23 – 00:47:46:55
Dr. Corey Olsen
Obviously the benefits to students are too obviously great and nobody’s doing it and nobody’s doing it. And I’m like, well, okay, I guess I’ll do it myself. But what really motivated me was the tuition thing, okay? Because I’m telling you, man, it is heartbreaking. I was an English professor at the time, right. So here I am. And the school I was teaching at, it was a liberal arts school.
00:47:46:55 – 00:48:06:37
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s a good liberal arts school, but it wasn’t like a top tier liberal arts school was one of those awkward schools which is second tier, but like pretty much equal to the first tier in cost essentially. Yeah. Okay. Right. You know, and, you know, there’s lots of schools like this where, you know, the tuition is not much less, but it doesn’t have the same reputation.
00:48:06:37 – 00:48:37:51
Dr. Corey Olsen
You know, it’s it’s, it’s it’s it’s not Harvard, but it costs almost as much as Harvard, you know, and, anyway, so every year, every year I’m sitting in my office and in the chair there in my office is this woman, I say woman because 80% of our English majors were female. There’s a woman sitting in my chair who’s about to graduate with her English major, and she’s about to graduate with somewhere between 50 and $90,000 worth of debt and very few job prospects.
00:48:37:51 – 00:48:42:11
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. She’s she’s looking at like, maybe I can get a job as a librarian or something. Yeah.
00:48:42:19 – 00:49:07:27
Agent Palmer
I mean, you’re. Yeah. So I went to whatever the next tier down is in liberal arts college is like, I didn’t pay that much, but it wasn’t cheap and it’s not. And I, I was a liberal arts associate degree because I couldn’t make up my mind. And then I got my associate’s degree and they said, well, what are you going to do next?
00:49:07:27 – 00:49:28:58
Agent Palmer
Are they communications? I don’t know, like, great. Like, but but I feel like and I don’t mean to harp on this, but like, the joke is like, you’re an English major. What are you going to do? But communications is too damn broad. You get the same thing. You’re a communications major. What are you going to do? Like an English major can say?
00:49:28:58 – 00:49:44:16
Agent Palmer
I can write a communications major can say, I can write, but you your job prospects are not that much better. So I, I’m, I’m they’re sitting in that chair now going like, What what’s next? How do I pay down any of this?
00:49:44:21 – 00:50:07:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
Exactly, exactly. Now, there are, of course, two problems with this, and I’m not going to. I’m not I’m going to try to finish my story. So I’m not going to derail myself by getting off on this whole different rant. But I do have a rant which starts with what are you going to do with that is tragically, horribly the wrong question to be asking about education.
00:50:07:04 – 00:50:28:01
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like if that whole the way in which higher education as an entire industry has bought into that mindset, that education that you get and degrees that you achieve that the whole purpose of those is that they’re supposed to be like a key that you use to open a door right to a high, you know, a high earning career.
00:50:28:01 – 00:50:44:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
It was that is a horrible way to approach education first for schools, for students. It’s that if I had to point to one thing that I think is at the root of the disease of higher education today, it would be that question, what are you going to do?
00:50:44:07 – 00:51:04:22
Agent Palmer
And so I graduated in 2004 with a bachelor’s in communications. And that literally was my expectation. It right. Like you just expect I walk across the stage, I spend a summer looking for jobs, and because I have this diploma in my hand, somebody hires me.
00:51:04:22 – 00:51:05:34
Dr. Corey Olsen
That’s the that’s it.
00:51:05:34 – 00:51:34:47
Agent Palmer
It’s the expectation. And when it doesn’t work that way, we all go, I and look, no one hears. Just to to further your rant. No one actually promises you that, but they don’t tell you not to expect it. Like when when you’re sitting in that guidance counselors office or you know, your your advisor’s office junior year and you’re like, well, I guess I’ll just try and, you know, I’ll be a journalist when I graduate.
00:51:34:56 – 00:51:42:22
Agent Palmer
And they say, sure. And they don’t tell you there’s there’s like no jobs available or like, there’s no there’s no turnover.
00:51:42:22 – 00:51:45:23
Dr. Corey Olsen
That the entire journalism industry is about to go belly up.
00:51:45:27 – 00:51:53:31
Agent Palmer
Right? Yeah. It’s. Yeah. No it’s so I’m there. Anyway, back to the story. Yeah. So you make the jump, you go I’m going.
00:51:53:31 – 00:52:21:58
Dr. Corey Olsen
To the jump because because compassion. Right. I’m, I’m, I’m like whenever I’m, whenever I’m there right. Looking at my poor graduating senior with all this debt and everything, it’s hard not to feel complicit. Right? I mean, it’s not my fault. Like, I, you know, I didn’t make the system. I did, but I’m like, man, this is here. I’ve been I’ve been working with this student and she’s really bright and she’s got, you know, could have a great but but she’s also completely screwed by the fact that she got $90,000 worth of debt.
00:52:21:58 – 00:52:51:54
Dr. Corey Olsen
And I have literally no idea what she’s going to do or how she can do anything about that. So now that by itself, I mean, I didn’t for a long time. I mean, for I had felt this way for years. And I myself, I mean, I’m from a really poor socioeconomic background. You know, I went to an expensive school, unlike 95% financial aid like that, I was one of those charity cases, like, you know, that like, the expensive school takes a certain number of people who totally can’t afford it for the sake of their demographics.
00:52:51:54 – 00:53:07:51
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? I was one of them. I mean, I, you know, I was, I was, I was smart enough, but really poor. And so, you know, that was fine. Anyway, but like I have, I have lots of sympathy for people who are really in this, the difficult situation. But I had no I mean, there was nothing I could do about it.
00:53:07:56 – 00:53:28:17
Dr. Corey Olsen
But until again, this moment comes right this moment when I after I did The Silmarillion seminar, when I see online education to point out right, I suddenly see the potential of this, because then I start doing the math and I’m like, okay, man, you know what? If we did classes this way we don’t need a campus period at all.
00:53:28:19 – 00:53:53:24
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, we don’t need a building. We don’t need anything. We need no infrastructure I could spend, I don’t know, 90% of the entire overhead would just be like salaries for people. And I’m like, you just need to pay the people the, you know, your faculty and your staff and and you’d need a few software licenses, and that’s all you need.
00:53:53:24 – 00:54:21:38
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, we could do everything with that. And I started doing the math and I’m like, you know, we could pay people pretty well, you know, like faculty and stuff. We could pay pretty well and yet charge on a completely different scale than, you know. And I’m like. And so I began to have this uncomfortable feeling. I’m like, well, this isn’t the solution in the sense of being the only solution to the student debt problem.
00:54:21:47 – 00:54:53:57
Dr. Corey Olsen
But I’m like, this is a legitimate solution. Like this. This is a difference maker. In the eye we can create like I have the we have the ability. Like I now see this way to do teaching online in a way that is satisfying for students that they can get from it. It’s not the same experience as being on campus, but from the classroom experience, you can have the same kind of rich learning environment that you have within the walls of a brick and mortar classroom.
00:54:54:02 – 00:55:16:50
Dr. Corey Olsen
And yet I can do that for a quarter to a 10th the price of because the overhead is so much lower. And what’s more, I can do that I don’t even need startup capital because I don’t have to buy anything either. I already have a computer, right? Yeah. Party got a computer and a room in which to sit while I’m using it, and an internet connection.
00:55:16:50 – 00:55:30:05
Dr. Corey Olsen
And that’s literally all I need, right? So I’m like, I don’t, you know, normally you know, oh, you need to raise millions of dollars and stuff because you need to buy a building and you need to do all this other stuff. Right? I didn’t need to do any of that stuff. So I’m like, I could start this right now.
00:55:30:10 – 00:55:45:36
Dr. Corey Olsen
And I would need money for it. And the money that came in from I could set the tuition level really low, and the money that came in from the tuition that came in would be enough to pay the people who are taking on the who are teaching, you know, the classes that that I’m offering, this could really work.
00:55:45:36 – 00:56:08:51
Dr. Corey Olsen
And so that was what that was the thing where in the end, like I felt like I couldn’t I felt like I couldn’t not do it. That’s what that kind of gave me the, the impetus to really make the leap, because I knew at that point, I knew when I started offering classes for tuition, that’s when I knew that my college president was not going to be a big fan of this for very long.
00:56:08:55 – 00:56:36:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
And, truly, he was not a big fan of that for very long. And it was about, actually was a little long. It was about a year after I first began the first experiments with it that, I ended up agreeing, you know, having a long conversation in the president’s office and, in which, you know, we came to an agreement, that I was going to that I was going to leave.
00:56:36:08 – 00:56:49:59
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I was tenured at that point. So I decide I decided to make that genuine leap, and leave my tenured job. And, and do the and and so that’s where Signum University was born.
00:56:49:59 – 00:57:18:24
Agent Palmer
So is it before is it some time before that conversation or after that conversation where you feel truly comfortable because it is, you know, in the the first year, the second year, the third year, it’s still kind of an experiment because you don’t know how it’s going to go. So when do you feel comfortable in like this is a decision I made and you’re not or I shouldn’t say you’re not.
00:57:18:34 – 00:57:24:04
Agent Palmer
When do you stop waking up going, oh my God, what did I do?
00:57:24:09 – 00:57:51:10
Dr. Corey Olsen
Well, that’s, fortunately, like, personality wise, that’s not really me. Okay. I’m, I’m. I don’t think I ever would have done it if I had been, slightly more of, kind of. I’m not much of a worrier. And I’m, I have unusually good skills of compartmentalization. I, I I’m, I’m the kind of person who really can say.
00:57:51:14 – 00:57:56:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
And now I’m going to stop thinking about that and just turn myself to thinking about something else.
00:57:56:06 – 00:57:58:19
Agent Palmer
Oh, jealous of you right now.
00:57:58:24 – 00:58:21:59
Dr. Corey Olsen
And if not, so. So let me just say the downside of this is that I’m incredibly forgetful. Like, it’s it’s it’s the two sides of the same coin. Right? I, I’m the kind of person who’s always walking into a room and forgetting why I came into the room. Like what? My what? I drive my wife crazy because, like, she sends me to go get something, and then I come back without it and I’m like, oh, yeah, I went, she’s like, that’s literally what you went to do.
00:58:22:01 – 00:58:36:48
Dr. Corey Olsen
How could you forget that you were doing that? But it’s that same thing, like like I’m, you know, my focus is on what the thing I’m doing. And so if I get distracted onto something else, the other thing doesn’t even exist, right? So it was it was actually in this period of time that I learned to harness this.
00:58:36:48 – 00:58:56:06
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. And I used to for most of my life, I considered my forgetfulness just like this character flaw. You know, it was just this burden that I had to try to overcome. And then I realized the utility of it, that I can use that power for good. So. And it was fortunate, right, in that time that I discovered this because.
00:58:56:06 – 00:59:14:53
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah. I mean, it was the whole thing has been I mean, look, I’m not going to, this is not, you know, listeners, you are not listening to a success story of someone who stepped out onto the, you know, who jumped out into the dark and has since made millions of dollars. I’ve not made millions of dollars.
00:59:14:53 – 00:59:30:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
Okay? This has not been a get rich quick or slow scheme. It has. So, I mean, this is not been for me the pathway to, financial security. But I’m at peace with that. I always.
00:59:30:16 – 00:59:31:17
Agent Palmer
Say. Is it.
00:59:31:17 – 00:59:31:57
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah.
00:59:32:02 – 00:59:54:07
Agent Palmer
I, I there I, I’m, I’m, I’m forgetting the word now, it’s not financial success or independence, but it’s, it’s, you know, peace, right? Like you’re doing something you love. You’re helping people, and you can live on that. It’s you’re almost like a farmer. Like, this is what I do, and it sustains me.
00:59:54:14 – 01:00:20:49
Dr. Corey Olsen
Absolutely. And, you know, and it’s funny because that’s exactly, financially speaking, the university has always kind of run like a subsistence farm, right? Because we have very few costs other than our payroll. Right. Other than our people. So I, I love running a nonprofit like Signum. I don’t know what I would do if I had, like, stockholders to try to appease.
01:00:20:49 – 01:00:40:19
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right. If, like, the whole point of running a business, I mean, so I’ve been running this business now for ten years, and, I’d never run a business before, and it’s kind of not I would not have thought that that was my bag, but like, the kind of like, you know, you must increase your profit margins and, like, maximize everything so that people can make a lot of money off you.
01:00:40:23 – 01:00:47:39
Dr. Corey Olsen
I would I would not thrive in that environment. But for us, what winning looks like financially. Yeah. Is meeting payroll.
01:00:47:44 – 01:00:49:07
Agent Palmer
Right. You know, we meet payroll.
01:00:49:07 – 01:00:50:19
Dr. Corey Olsen
We’ve won. It’s that’s it.
01:00:50:26 – 01:01:13:26
Agent Palmer
So I’ve been looking for a job for at this point two years, give or take. I spent nine years in the nonprofit sector, and before that I was in retail. But that’s, you know, professionally, I have a nonprofit mindset. And when I interview with people, especially because sales and marketing are so intertwined, despite the fact that they are not the same.
01:01:13:30 – 01:01:36:42
Agent Palmer
I always tell people, I don’t know how to spend money, and I don’t mean that in a way where like, I can’t, it’s not my go to. Like if you say, I want to get this done, I will tell you 20 ways to get it done with $5 if you tell me to, if you give me $200, I’ll be like, I don’t know what to do with all this money.
01:01:36:57 – 01:01:42:08
Agent Palmer
Like, and there’s a mindset to that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s I think.
01:01:42:13 – 01:01:57:50
Dr. Corey Olsen
Signum is just the same. Signum is just the same. I was recently interacting with a group of people who were, they were, you know, they had asked for my advice. And so I was coming in. I’m, I’m working with them on this thing. Right. And they’re making a marketing plan, right now. I’ve made a whole bunch of marketing plans.
01:01:57:50 – 01:02:15:45
Dr. Corey Olsen
I’ve been doing marketing for Signum for ten years. And it’s always, always about how can we maximize our reach without spend spending a single penny because we don’t have any pennies to spend on this, like we’ve almost never spent anything on advertising or anything like that. And so I’m sitting in this meeting and they immediately start throwing out.
01:02:15:45 – 01:02:31:38
Dr. Corey Olsen
They’re like, okay, well, first we’re going to need X amount of dollars for like, you know, like these surveys and then these focus groups. And then we’re going to do these and I’m like I feel like I’m on the moon right now. This is so weird. Like, okay, this is how I guess normal businesses think I guess weird.
01:02:31:38 – 01:02:33:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
Okay, fine.
01:02:33:07 – 01:02:58:12
Agent Palmer
So before I let you go, I have to ask, outside of teaching and I’ll say token to compartmentalize those things away. What do you do to relax? Like. Because obviously those things do take up a lot of time, especially teaching and running a university. But what do you do to relax or have fun?
01:02:58:17 – 01:03:20:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
So, what I do to relax and have fun is, and this is something that I’ve only just kind of begun doing again for a long time. And still, teaching is like my outlet, you know, I do, now, you know, I for I feel like I’m a full time administrator now. You know, I’ve been running the school for a long time now, ten years.
01:03:20:13 – 01:03:36:55
Dr. Corey Olsen
And, I almost by the way, I almost feel like I’m at, like, an AA meeting. And. Mike. Hi. My name is Corey Olson, and I’m an administrator. I’ve been administrating for ten years. But but, I mean, coming up in the faculty like I am in administration is still kind of a dirty word in my mind.
01:03:36:55 – 01:03:54:43
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I kind of, you know, have to reconcile myself to you. But anyway, the point is, you know, this is what, you know, focusing on, on, you know, planning and leadership of, of my organization is what I do day in and day out. So I absolutely cling to my opportunities to teach. There are some times, you know, I’m really busy and my time’s really occupied.
01:03:54:43 – 01:04:13:07
Dr. Corey Olsen
And sometimes somebody in my organization will be like, you know, it might be a little bit easier for you if you taught fewer classes every week online, you know, because you’re doing the I do four streams a week for two hour streams a week. You know, I’m so I mean, I’m actually like in the online classroom, you know, 8 to 10 hours a week.
01:04:13:21 – 01:04:32:11
Dr. Corey Olsen
And, and people like, you know, that’s kind of a lot given how many other things you have to do. And I’m like, no, what you don’t understand is that that’s why I’m still saying, you know, so so that’s one thing the teaching itself is. But, but at the same time, it still does take a lot of energy, right?
01:04:32:11 – 01:04:48:08
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s still yeah, it’s still, you know, it’s, you know, being in a it’s like performing no matter how much you love being on the stage. Right? You know, you could be somebody who just thrives on the energy of the stage and, and it’s just. And you’d feel like, desolate if you couldn’t be up in front of people.
01:04:48:13 – 01:05:16:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
But that doesn’t mean that you don’t ever want to break from that. Right? So what I in recent years, I have discovered that the most refreshing thing that I can do is create, have time to just think creatively. I have and it began actually. Funny, you mentioned dungeon mastering earlier. That’s how it started for me. Because I was playing, Dungeons and Dragons with my kids.
01:05:16:03 – 01:05:34:28
Dr. Corey Olsen
I got, two teenage boys. Excuse me, one of my teenage boys just turned 18, so he’s an adult now, but, but but anyway, so I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got I’ve got two kids, so I, you know, I was, we were playing dandy and I was, I was, you know, DMing a little family campaign.
01:05:34:33 – 01:05:52:25
Dr. Corey Olsen
So I was, you know, doing a lot of, like, campaign planning and like, you know, making up the story and characters in this whole background and everything. And I was just like, man, this is refreshing. It’s just refreshing to be creative in ways like, I’m not, you know, it’s like I’m not accountable to anybody for it. I’m not.
01:05:52:34 – 01:06:23:47
Dr. Corey Olsen
I’m just enjoying a creative outlet that is completely unrelated to anything else I do. And so I’ve kept I’ve kept doing that. I’m, I’m at some point it has kind of merged from I am preparing a D&D campaign. It kind of went from that through, actually kind of now sort of developing my own, like whole roleplaying game system to in the end, I think I actually kind of might be writing a story, but I’m not sure it’s not yet.
01:06:23:47 – 01:06:42:33
Dr. Corey Olsen
It’s not yet a book. I’m not actually composing prose, but, like, the whole thing has just kind of taken on a life of its own and I and but it’s what I do for fun is just sort of sit there and and unwind by just. It’s funny because for a long time I always thought, like, if I want to rest, I need to do less write.
01:06:42:33 – 01:07:06:57
Dr. Corey Olsen
I need to like find some time where I’m just not thinking about anything. And I still do that sometimes. I really enjoy. You and I were chatting before the show about baseball. I love baseball, I love, you know, so sometimes I’ll just be. I’ll sit down, you know, in front of a baseball game and do you know, sort of something kind of mindless with my hands or some kind of, you know, household task or something with the game on my iPad or something right there.
01:07:07:02 – 01:07:26:51
Dr. Corey Olsen
And, you know, and that’s also really, really refreshing and really relaxing. But even more, the most refreshing thing I find that I do is not being inert, but being active. But just like without any fetters, without any guidance, just, and just being creative. And that has been, that has been awesome for me.
01:07:26:52 – 01:07:47:10
Agent Palmer
I, I couldn’t agree more like, I, I spent nine years with a 9 to 5, and during those nine years I started a blog that was weekly and then twice weekly and then back to weekly. And then I started a podcast, and then I stopped having that job, and I had another job, and then I stopped having that job.
01:07:47:10 – 01:08:14:56
Agent Palmer
But the blog and the podcast maintain and it is in the creation, it is in the drafting of the post. It is in the reaching out to the guest, the editing of the audio, more or less. It is in all of those creative pursuits that I get to just be. And so that’s how we all endure, I think, especially those of us.
01:08:15:00 – 01:08:22:14
Agent Palmer
Those of us like we’re nerds, we’re geeks, like. But we do our best when we’re doing something.
01:08:22:19 – 01:08:43:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
Absolutely. Yeah. I just I mean, I don’t know, I don’t want to overgeneralize because I’m sure that, I mean, every, you know, lots of, you know, lots of people different, you know, many wide differences among people in the world. But I do I mean, I would suggest to people I if you don’t make something, try it. Try making something.
01:08:43:04 – 01:09:09:30
Dr. Corey Olsen
Try finding something you can enjoy making. Don’t make something that you feel like you should make right. Don’t just like whatever it is that you enjoy. Make something, produce a thing, whatever it is. Maybe it’s a craft. Maybe it’s you know, some other kind of hobby. But but but make sure that in your life you can say, here’s the thing that I’ve just I’ve, I’ve produced this, I’ve made this thing, and.
01:09:09:30 – 01:09:31:31
Dr. Corey Olsen
Oh, man, that has been so, so refreshing. Of course, I feel really fortunate because to some extent, you know, I do feel a lot of this. I certainly don’t feel the same way that I have at many other times in my life. You know, when my work weekends, I mean, Signum University is something that I’ve made. So, you know, the, the whole thing is, really partakes of that.
01:09:31:44 – 01:09:57:02
Dr. Corey Olsen
And everything that I do, you know, as a leader and administrator of, you know, sort of a planner or of of, of my university really does partake of that same kind of pleasure of making, you know, making something and making a difference for people. So it’s it’s enormously satisfying. And honestly, some weeks I have to cut it off and be like, no, no, no, I’m supposed to stop and take this day off, or else, you know, I’ll burn out later on.
01:09:57:07 – 01:10:31:01
Dr. Corey Olsen
But, but nevertheless, like, especially for folks, in an I’ve, you know, I’ve had friends and family who have gone through some really difficult times where they’re struggling with their work and they’re struggling with their whole lives, kind of just feeling empty. When you get into one of those grooves where you’re just punching the clock and coming home and watching TV and going to bed and going back to work and, and, and life begins to feel all black and white and pointless, you know, and and so, yeah, my what my advice would be make something.
01:10:31:06 – 01:10:36:05
Agent Palmer
You.
01:10:36:10 – 01:11:02:15
Agent Palmer
Corey’s story is amazing, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Now, as for the takeaways that you’re used to hearing me pontificate on during this portion of the episode, well, it’s hard to come up with anything that Corey didn’t already say, so I’ll just reiterate go make something that you enjoy making, relax in the process, and relax in the finished product.
01:11:02:20 – 01:11:29:02
Agent Palmer
Making the time to make something is great for your wellbeing. Period. The end. You’ve just heard Corey say it. You’ve heard me reiterate it and now it’s your turn. So what are you going to make? Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 47. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business, the Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
01:11:29:11 – 01:11:54:04
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest Corey Olsen at Talk, and Prof. Todd Elkin and Prof. And this show at The Palmer Files for all things Corey. You can visit talking professor.com for all things signum. You can visit Signum university.org. That’s s ig and university.org.
01:11:54:09 – 01:12:22:31
Agent Palmer
The Myth guard Institute can be found@mouthguard.org. That’s my t h guard dawg. And of course email can be sent to the show at the Palmer files at gmail.com. And as always be your home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
01:12:22:35 – 01:12:38:00
Unknown
You.
01:12:38:05 – 01:12:48:28
Unknown
Need.
01:12:48:33 – 01:12:53:06
Unknown
Me.
01:12:53:11 – 01:12:57:24
Unknown
She.
01:12:57:28 – 01:12:59:51
Agent Palmer
All right? Corey, do you have one final question for me?
01:13:00:05 – 01:13:16:00
Dr. Corey Olsen
I do, and I’m admittedly asking as a Red Sox fan, but how? How does it feel to be one of the noble, the faithful few who are holding on in the world of Orioles fandom?
01:13:16:05 – 01:13:49:43
Agent Palmer
So, full disclosure, as we’ve been recording there’s the game is on to my right. For the last two years, I’ve been I’ve been paying for MLB.tv because I don’t live in the Baltimore area, so it’s out of market for me. So I, I’ve been I’ve been paying for it for years and years and years and years. And when I lost my job, I went, I, I it’s an expense, but I feel obligated to, to make more of an effort to use it.
01:13:49:48 – 01:14:00:32
Agent Palmer
And I can’t give it up. So I have watched 95% of every inning of every Orioles game for the last three years. Now.
01:14:00:37 – 01:14:02:11
Dr. Corey Olsen
That last incredible.
01:14:02:17 – 01:14:13:25
Agent Palmer
Last year, it was only a 60 game season. It was super easy. And and it was even easier because the way that schedule worked out, they were all 7:00 games like, I didn’t have to stay up to watch the Seattle game that starts at.
01:14:13:25 – 01:14:15:50
Dr. Corey Olsen
Ten, right? They didn’t go to the West Coast. Yeah.
01:14:15:54 – 01:14:33:28
Agent Palmer
And you know, I have it on, right? Like I’m not just watching it. Like, I’ll read a book while I’m watching the kind of like we talked about in the episode. Right? What I will tell you is my fandom has always remained. I got my love of token from my father. That’s how I got my love of the Orioles, right?
01:14:33:28 – 01:15:01:47
Agent Palmer
It’s just it’s just it it’s it’s how it happens. And, I’ve. I’ve written about my love of the Orioles. It was one of the few creative things I was able to do in college that, like, just kind of poured out. It’s not hard to do that. And, I it’s hard to when you talk about being one of the noble few, it is hard because even within my family that are nothing but Orioles fans, I’m the only one watching all of the games, right?
01:15:01:47 – 01:15:03:45
Dr. Corey Olsen
Like, right. Right.
01:15:03:50 – 01:15:36:03
Agent Palmer
John means pitch to no hitter, and I feel like I was in a group family text in the ninth inning, but I watched from the first pitch and was just like, I can’t tell anybody about this because I don’t want to jinx it. Like, oh, yes. Yeah, it’s it’s been hard. I, I’m not going to lie, because you, I, you know, I grew up and in the mid 90s we had Cal Ripken breaking the record and 97 they make the playoffs.
01:15:36:08 – 01:15:59:58
Agent Palmer
They go to Yankee Stadium. And Jeffrey my horrible Jeffrey Mayer catches that home run. That’s not a home run. Yeah. And ever since then we’ve won the division once we you know, one of the and I hate to say this to you a Red Sox fan but like one of the best things we did in the last ten years was knock you out on the last day of the season because it was the closest thing we were ever going to get to a playoff run.
01:16:00:08 – 01:16:06:03
Dr. Corey Olsen
We are 2011. That was so painful. That was awful. And I was living in Maryland at that time.
01:16:06:03 – 01:16:06:24
Agent Palmer
But we.
01:16:06:24 – 01:16:07:13
Dr. Corey Olsen
Just.
01:16:07:18 – 01:16:30:27
Agent Palmer
It’s it’s it’s painful and yet and yet like and and look it’s first world problems. Right. I’m looking for a job but I still have the ability to pay and watch every game. And I’m making and I can make the time right. I get I get all of that. But one of the things I’ve learned is that fandom is without rationale.
01:16:30:32 – 01:16:54:02
Agent Palmer
It it doesn’t exist. Why do you love Tolkien? Why do you love the Red Sox? Why does a Star Wars fan love Star Wars? It’s just part of me. I, I it’s I can’t, I can’t not now. Do I have a second and third. Yeah. Like, I, I mean I, I learned to love the, the NL West because we don’t play there even within our league very often.
01:16:54:11 – 01:17:29:16
Agent Palmer
So I can enjoy all of the chaos for the last decade of the Dodgers, the Padres, the Giants, the D-backs, the Rockies, all of that. That’s been fun. And that’s always great entertainment to watch after a heartbreaking loss. Three two to whoever you know, whatever. Right. But right. But we but I keep going back to the well and it gives me hope because it’s all I’ve got left and I’m looking for a job so I can’t help but think like, well, they just keep losing and I keep getting rejections.
01:17:29:16 – 01:17:51:11
Agent Palmer
But one of these days it’s going to turn around for them, and one of these days it’s going to turn around for me and I, I, I, I mean, not to kind of tweak it from the question you asked, but it’s one of the enduring things about sports. And there are people that grow up playing sports and then learn to love it, or playing sports and then learn to hate it.
01:17:51:11 – 01:18:14:03
Agent Palmer
And there are people that have no concept of sports at all. My partner has lived with me. I don’t know, she’s we’ve been together for five years. She moved in, I think, three and a half, four years ago. She was, a soccer fan, an international soccer fan. I love the Orioles. I’ve turned her into a baseball fan.
01:18:14:08 – 01:18:42:44
Agent Palmer
I watch the NBA playoffs now. She does too. I watch college football now. She does too. And she gets invested in these games and caught up in these games that she probably never would have watched had it not been for me. And, and, and through her. I don’t want to call it naive naivete because it’s not. But through her virgin eyes of like, I’ve never sat down and watched a baseball game all the way through and cared about the outcome.
01:18:42:53 – 01:19:05:59
Agent Palmer
There’s something like unique about that. And look, it comes and goes. I didn’t always watch every game, but, you know, I, I just keep holding out hope. And for those out there who are like, well, if you stop watching, maybe they’ll win. That’s not true fandom. True fandom is I want to be there. I want to see it when it happens.
01:19:05:59 – 01:19:08:43
Agent Palmer
I don’t want it to happen without me.
01:19:08:48 – 01:19:32:17
Dr. Corey Olsen
Yeah, yeah. And my wife is a Cubs fan. I grew up a Cubs fan. And so, you know, it happened for her. I’m sure it’ll happen for you. I know I am, and I will tell you, the Orioles are the only other team in our division that I will cheer for. Because, like, the day, when the day comes that the Orioles are really good and they go to the worlds, I will be cheering for the Orioles so hard, it’s not even fun.
01:19:32:18 – 01:19:50:49
Agent Palmer
Yeah, and and look, it’s not that hard. Like I’ve rooted against the Yankees my entire life. I became a Red Sox fan in oh three and oh four, you know, and I was just as heartbroken as you when that home run went out and Boone hit it. And then I was just as happy for you watching those four wonderful days in 2004.
01:19:50:49 – 01:20:09:04
Dr. Corey Olsen
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. No. And and the same will be true. Likewise, even though I know it’s very likely that they will have to make their way to the World Series, you know, over the bodies of the Red Sox when it happens. But when it does happen, after that has passed, then I will be cheering for them absolutely.
01:20:09:04 – 01:20:28:44
Dr. Corey Olsen
All the rest of the way. Because it is it is a noble calling to be an Orioles fan. And as you say, like sports fandom, it’s it’s like life, you know, I mean, like, it’s it’s part of the it’s just the narrative, right? The, the narrative of the like, whether it’s the narrative of a game or the narrative of a whole season or the narrative of a whole generation of seasons.
01:20:28:44 – 01:20:34:33
Dr. Corey Olsen
Right? It’s it’s watching how that story unfolds and it’s just, it is delightful, I agree.
01:20:34:33 – 01:20:34:51
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
01:20:35:05 – 01:20:37:11
Dr. Corey Olsen
We’ll keep it up, man. Thanks. Keep it up.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).