Sims Praxis ยท Published Biweekly
The Praxis Podcast
Social psychology, leadership, and the future of higher education. Three series. 18 planned episodes. 20 to 30 minutes each. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and iHeart Radio.
Format
Solo and Guest Episodes
Solo episodes for the core content. Occasional guests for high credibility conversations that expand the network.
Cadence
Every Other Week
Published biweekly. Batch recorded in sets of four to maintain a 2-month content buffer at all times.
Length
20 to 30 Minutes
Tight and purposeful. No filler, no extended intros. Every episode respects the listener's time.
Three Series
Episode Plan. All 18 Episodes
Series 01
The Retention Files
Deep investigations into why students leave. And the institutions building systems to change that. Research-grounded, practitioner-facing, and consistently uncomfortable in the most useful way.
01
What Social Psychology Taught Me About Keeping Students
The origin story and the research foundation behind everything that follows. Why retention is a belonging problem before it is a data problem.
02
The Myth of the Unmotivated Student
What self-determination theory actually says about student motivation. And why the most common institutional responses to low engagement are designed to make it worse.
03
Reading the Room Before the Grade Drops
A practitioner conversation on the five behavioral signals that predict departure weeks before any system flags them. What training advisors to notice actually looks like.
04
First Generation Does Not Mean Under-Prepared
The research on how first generation students experience institutional belonging. And the specific advising and support practices that change outcomes.
05
When the Early Alert System Is the Problem
A frank look at what AI powered risk scoring gets right, what it consistently gets wrong, and the equity implications that most vendors would rather not discuss.
06
Community Colleges Are the Most Important Institutions You Are Ignoring
The student population carrying the most economic and social weight in American higher education. And the retention research most applicable to their specific context.
Series 02
Evidence-Based Leadership
What happens when you run institutions on research rather than mythology. Conversations at the intersection of social psychology, organizational behavior, and the practical reality of leading people under pressure.
01
AI Is Not the Problem. Here Is What Is
The question is not whether to use AI. The question is whether you are using it to protect human connection or replace it. That distinction determines whether your implementation helps students or quietly hurts them.
02
From Research to Results. Being a Scholar Practitioner
What it actually looks like to translate peer-reviewed findings into operational decisions. The gap between academic rigor and practitioner usability. And how to bridge it without losing either.
03
The Identity Crisis at the Heart of American Higher Ed
How American colleges and universities are navigating a fundamental question about their purpose. And what social psychology says about institutions that lose clarity on who they exist to serve.
04
What the Military Taught Me About Leading Through Uncertainty
The leadership lessons from Army National Guard service that transferred directly to executive leadership in higher education. And several that did not.
05
Evidence-Based Leadership in the Age of AI
How leaders can use AI as a bias-check rather than a decision maker. The assumption-surfacing prompts that change the quality of institutional decision making.
06
Building Systems That Do Not Depend on You
The organizational design principles for creating institutions that continue to function and improve when the leader who built them is no longer in the room.
Series 03
The Applied Psych Series
Social psychology translated for the broadest possible audience. Episodes for managers, community leaders, coaches, educators, and anyone who works with people and wants a research foundation for why they behave the way they do.
01
Why People Do Not Do What They Say They Will
The gap between intention and behavior is one of the most consistent findings in social psychology. A practical framework for understanding it. And designing environments that close it.
02
The Psychology of Workplace Engagement Beyond the Survey
What self-determination theory says about engagement. And why most organizational engagement programs measure the wrong thing and then wonder why nothing changes.
03
Social Identity and the Learner Experience
How the groups we belong to shape what we believe we are capable of learning. The implications for every teacher, coach, and trainer who has ever wondered why some students seem to give up before they start.
04
Conflict as Information
Why team conflict avoidance produces worse outcomes than conflict itself. A framework for using disagreement as diagnostic data rather than a problem to be managed into silence.
05
The Science of Influence. Without the Manipulation
Cialdini's influence principles in their actual research context. The difference between persuasion that serves the person being persuaded and persuasion that exploits cognitive shortcuts.
06
How Bias Shows Up in Everyday Decisions
The seven cognitive biases with the most practical implications for organizational life. Not an exhaustive survey. A focused look at the ones that actually change behavior when people understand them.
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