Cougars Uncaged, with Kelly Genei and Justine Defever

This week on Cougars Uncaged, Lonnie Pries and Kylie Walker sit down with two incredible Cleary University leaders — Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Kelly Genei, and Associate Professor, Justine Defever.

Get ready for laughs, inspiration, and surprises as Kelly and Justine share their unique paths to Cleary — from plastics recycling to academia, and from residence life to leadership.

They dive into their passion for DECA, their favorite Cleary campus spots, rapid-fire fun (including weirdest foods eaten and pet peeves), and a competitive showdown naming Michigan universities. 

🎧 Listen in to see how these two educators are helping shape Cleary’s student experience — one class (and comma splice) at a time.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:06  
Hello and welcome to the one. The only cu clear is uncaged podcast. Thank you all for being here worldwide. Kylie. I'm here with Kylie Walker. This is Lonnie priest. We are the den dwellers. There is Kylie. Great to see you. We are here with our special guests. Sorry if I pronounce your last names wrong. Kelly janai and Justine de fever, you got it. Thank you so much for being here. It is great to have you here. This is going worldwide, like nation. We don't know how many people are watching this, but get ready, because it is going to go out there. You're looking at my sheet. I can't I promise. I'm scared. All right, we've got a bunch of segments we're gonna go through. And really the goal of this is that people can kind of see and learn a little bit more about you, both of you. So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourselves.

Unknown Speaker  0:52  
What you do at Cleary, maybe how you got to Cleary, you know, just a, just a minute for each of you. So, Justine, would you like to start Absolutely, this is I have now worked at Clery for seven years. I originally started in academic advising. I started to do some adjuncting for the English and communication courses, and then I received a promotion about four years ago to this Associate Professor role. And previously, I was living in Marquette, and I was in charge of one of the residence halls on campus there, and wanted to relocate to the lower peninsula again, and I applied for the academic advisor call, and it worked out, and the rest is history. I love it. So do you miss the

Unknown Speaker  1:37  
dorm, dorm life? Did you live in the dorms when you did it? Yes, yes. Shout out to Gant Hall, which has since been demoed. Oh, demoed. Gant Hall. Rest in peace. Yes, Gant Hall, we always remember. But yes, I don't miss I lived on campus in total for nine years, so I don't necessarily miss having 280 neighbors, but the Upper Peninsula is the most gorgeous place. Oh yes, yes, awesome. While, while Kelly's answering the same question we the last question in this part is, we want to know what you really do at Cleary, do you really like, sum it up, and so you don't have to answer that now, but just keep that in mind, in the back your mind. So Kelly, how'd you get here? What do you do? Not what you really do? Yet, I am the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. I'm not the Dean of Students. Everybody, everyone gets that wrong. It's different. Do you wanna? Do you wanna help in that area? No, I don't. I'm good. I'll stick with academics. Okay, so I'm the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, and I've been at Cleary for six years. I started as an adjunct faculty. Before that, I owned plastics recycling company in Brighton, and I just decided I wanted to teach a class. I thought it would be fun, so I started as an adjunct teaching a marketing class here at Cleary, and it quickly

Unknown Speaker  3:01  
turned into full time. I turned into full time faculty. Sold my business and then was promoted to Dean almost a year and a half and ago, a year and a half ago now, that is awesome. I probably a story that has never existed in the history of education, plastic recycling owner, company owner, yeah, to the dean of a university. That is awesome. Okay, I do have one more question about Cleary, but what if someone say, or you're like, Okay, what do I really do? I know your roles, but what's, what's one thing that you really do? Yes, I share my knowledge and enthusiasm about comma splices with first year students, that is what I'm talking about, comma splices. Yes, love it. Keep that in mind. Out there. You know where to find you know where to find her. If you have a question. Kylie, about a comma splice, hit her up. Kelly, what do you really do? Um, I'd say maybe I'm like the chief complaint officer.

Unknown Speaker  3:59  
I solve problems. CCO, you're the CCO, yep. Okay, that's my real job. I love it. One more question about Cleary,

Unknown Speaker  4:07  
your favorite spot? Like, very specific spot on this campus. We're learning a lot about through this podcast about different spots, but what's your first thing that comes to mind? Or not first thing? But what's your favorite spot? I got mine, the meditation gallery located down the long hallway of Chrysler Hall. It is a collaborative project that Arthur Secunda had with a friend of his, and there are various passages from the Bible and Torah represented in the pieces that are in that room. And it's a pretty interesting when you read about it. It's an interesting collaboration that he had with a couple friends of his. That is awesome. Shout out to the Secunda museum public out there. It's open. Get here. It's amazing. Thanks for sharing that. That is That is awesome. Kelly, it can't be the same thing. Okay, favorite spot on campus.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Um, my favorite spot is sitting at Lake trust stadium, watching the games and seeing the water tower in the back with the Cleary logo on it. Okay, I think it's so cool, because I grew up in this area, and to see like we have, like a university with a stadium, and, you know, I think the colors and everything's just beautiful. So I love seeing that. Love it. Now, I'm gonna ask you this question, because we had a previous guest that told us a specific spot in the bleachers that he likes. You might not know the number, but do you know, like, if you're watching the game, do you know the area you would like to sit in? I don't, okay, I don't know. I don't have that picked out. You just want to be in, like, trust, yeah, soaking it in. Yep. I just like the view as long as I can see the water tower in a game happening. All right, any kind of game. I love it. Love it. Okay, first segments done, we're on. The next segment is called roll with it. Okay? You guys shared beforehand that we asked about a topic you want to talk about. You said, DECA. All right, okay, so what? Not both of you, but one of you speaking of DECA real quick. Maybe say what that stands for, and then say your favorite thing about DECA or unusual story. And then we'll, kind of, we'll start to roll with it.

Unknown Speaker  6:10  
So DECA used to stand for distributive educational Clubs of America. Now it's just an acronym, because that's what you know. A long time ago they called Business Education, like distributive education, got it so it doesn't stand for that anymore, okay? And now it's just, you know, a marketing and business competition club, okay? What was the second part my story? Funny story about DECA. First thing that pops to mind,

Unknown Speaker  6:38  
something about DECA. Oh, I don't know. Oh, one of our president. Last year of our DECA chapter decided to run for president of all Michigan collegiate DECA. That's funny, and he did not tell us that he had planned on running. So he gave this campaign speech, and now he is the vice president of all of Michigan collegiate DECA. Shout Out Carson McMillan, who is now a student at U of M. Carson McMillan, shout out. Speaking of that, you mentioned U of M, U of M, what's your favorite if you were to watch a sport at U of M, what would be your favorite sport that you'd want to watch at U of M, oh, football. Football. Love it. I love football. Speaking of football, okay, can what's the first I say football? What's the first team that that comes to mind the Detroit Lions, the lions, speaking of lions. What's your you know, Lions make me think of a zoo. What's your favorite zoo animal if you were to go to the zoo?

Unknown Speaker  7:30  
Oh, um, the penguins, the penguins, speaking of penguins. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of penguins? Batman, Danny DeVito. Danny DeVito, speaking of Danny DeVito, what's the what? When you think of Danny DeVito, what, what image comes in your mind that he's short, short. Speaking of short, what's the shortest thing that you've ever seen?

Unknown Speaker  7:57  
A bug in my garden. Speaking of garden, what's your favorite food to eat out of the garden?

Unknown Speaker  8:05  
Tomatoes, tomatoes. Speaking of tomatoes, if you'd have a tomato on anything, sandwich, food, whatever, what would it what would it be? Pasta minced up with some other pasta sauce stuff.

Unknown Speaker  8:20  
I love it. Speaking of pasta restaurant, what's your favorite restaurant if you're gonna go to get pasta, what's what restaurant would you

Unknown Speaker  8:29  
want to go to for pasta? Yeah, what's that one? The one in how? Well? Diamond, no. With the pizza. Oh. Karate. Karates. Karates. Kylie again. Thank you so much. We went from DECA to karate.

Unknown Speaker  8:47  
Kylie, how you feeling good? All right. Now, we just wanted to loosen you up a little bit. Now we're gonna go behind the curtain. We're gonna get to know y'all a little bit better here. All right. You ready? All right, this is we're gonna go back and forth. You're both going to answer the same question.

Unknown Speaker  9:03  
So first of all, if you can meet anybody on this planet, Okay, anybody on this planet who is alive that you have not met yet? Who would that person be? We'll

Unknown Speaker  9:13  
start with you. Mr. Nye,

Unknown Speaker  9:17  
oh boy, who's alive that I haven't met yet?

Unknown Speaker  9:21  
I think the person who comes to mind right now is Ilona mar the rugby player. Love it. Okay, hang on to that. Keep, keep she'd be fun. Keep her in mind. We have some follow up questions about Ilona. I've never heard her. This is going to be great. First person that comes to mind, obviously has to be somebody different. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  9:39  
I would like to have a conversation with Taylor Swift about some of her recent album choices. Oh, okay, very interesting. I heard, by the way, Taylor Swift shout out to one of our sponsors. Maybe not, but Jimmy Fallon. I think Taylor's coming on October 6. I just saw that on on the Jimmy Fallon show. Not that I don't know if you want to watch that. Okay, Taylor, look, let's go to you. Alona. Alona walks.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
In the door right now. She's she's coming in right now. We talked to her. We knew, we knew you wanted to see her, but anyway, she's walking in the door. We're pretending. What's the first question you ask her?

Unknown Speaker  10:11  
I would ask her, I think, I'm sure she's probably already answered, but how she got into playing rugby? Oh, how she first got it. Love it. Okay, you can't ask Taylor about her album choices. But another question, first question you'd want to ask Taylor, if she, if she comes in the door here, I would like to ask what kind of project she has in mind about children's literacy and music writing programs. Just out of curiosity, do you know that? Is she interested in that, or you've heard, or is that just you want you want to see? If I would love to see that from her, love it, because she could impact so much. Yes, love it. I thought about that a lot with famous people. And if they get behind something that, oh my gosh, they could change the change the world in a lot of ways. Okay, Lonnie, I'm a little disappointed in you that you don't know who Ilona is. I'm, well, I'm gonna look, I'm very sorry. I'm not even, I'm not a huge rugby follower stars. She was on the media. Well, my daughter's I'm gonna ask my daughter who is a die hard dance with the stars. So I will look into that more. All right, all right. As an Olympian, really nice. Do they win us women? Did they win last did they win the gold medal last time? No, bronze, okay, but that's the first time women's rugby has ever won a medal at the Olympics. Us, us, women's I love it. That's not our trivia question. She would have given away the answer, but we could use that. Okay? Second question about these people, you could hang out with a loan. You could hang out with her. You not playing rugby, you cannot do that. What would you do? You could hang out and spend a couple hours. What would you do? And you could do anything. Oh, well, we'd probably go eat.

Unknown Speaker  11:54  
Would you pay? Would you pay? Sure, and where would you take her? Oh,

Unknown Speaker  11:59  
karate.

Unknown Speaker  12:01  
Not karate. No. Shout out to karate is one of our future sponsors. Yeah, see, I did that on purpose.

Unknown Speaker  12:09  
Um, I like, I don't know, I like sushi. Okay, take her to sushi. Good. You can't take Taylor out to dinner, but Taylor walks in the door. You can't sing with her, because that's what she does. Or dance. What would you what do you want to do a hangout? I would like to rap about some of the places that she has traveled before and parts of the world that she has seen behind the curtain a little bit to get some travel recommendations. Love it. Love it. All right, on a more, I guess, personal level, who is the person from your past? And neither one of you can answer first, but the person from your past who has impacted you the most,

Unknown Speaker  12:46  
so just and actually you can answer, how did they impact you? Do they have to be passed away? Nope, they can be living. Okay, that one's easy for me. All right, so John Grether was my Economics professor. She's met him. He was my Economics professor in undergrad, and he taught some of my grad school classes, and he currently is a professor at Kettering, but he's the one who actually got me here, so I reached out to him because I was like, hey, you know, I'm thinking about teaching a class, because we stayed in contact after all these years. Be nice to your professors. They're helpful later. So we stayed in contact. He was like, Oh yeah, I know the provost, a former provost here at Cleary. He made a call. I came for a tour. Here I am. Boom, I still, we still hang out and have dinner once every few months. That is an awesome story. Yep. Thank you. Okay, Christine, who? How about you? Oh, I would say probably my grandmother, who immigrated from Belgium, she passed away when I was 17, but we share a lot of commonalities. So I think about her quite often, specifically her just prolific sewing and quilting and seamstress work that she would do, and in my creative projects, I feel very close to her when working on the whether it's gardening or cooking. That's so cool. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  14:15  
this might be difficult but, or maybe hard to think of specifically, but if you could say something to them right now

Unknown Speaker  14:22  
there you want to send out a message they're watching. Because I know when you're done here, I'm sure you're going to, well, I know your grandma passed away, but you're going to tell your family, tell your friends, tell this, please watch this show. Well, you could be funny, serious, heartfelt. What would you say? Don't just couple, couple words that you'd like to say to

Unknown Speaker  14:38  
your mentor. I guess you could say, um, I would say, Thanks for teaching me how to be good at this job. I didn't know it, but many years ago, he was an awesome professor, and so I learned how to do it right. Love it, yep, and you're great. If she, if you could talk to her, what would you what do you like to say to

Unknown Speaker  14:58  
her? Her nickname for me was.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
Is growing Cup, which is curly top, so I'd probably say crawling cup says gwendock. Hello. Good morning. I love it. Yes, I love it. Thank you guys for letting us dive deeper and learn. Learn a little bit about that. All right, now we're moving on to a rapid fire. I think you're gonna enjoy this. Justine from what we talked about before, rapid fire questions.

Unknown Speaker  15:22  
This has got to be fast, like I'm talking. First thing

Unknown Speaker  15:25  
that comes to mind, okay, are we ready? Who wants to start? Justine, and then we'll just go back and forth. You both answer the same question. Sounds good? You ready? Back there? You with us? You got some noises if they if they throw some good ones in your use some little sauce when you're least expecting it? Oh, I love that. I love it. All right, here we go. Favorite sandwich, crunchy pickle. Nancy, no mayo. Shout out with crunchy pickle downtown. Howell, we have all kinds of like sponsors lining up right here. Favorite sandwich, BLT, with tomatoes from my own garden. Oh, tomatoes. Way to bring that back in. Okay. Second Coming. Right back to you. Kelly, if you could only watch one TV show for the rest of your life, what would it

Unknown Speaker  16:07  
be? I don't watch TV or movie,

Unknown Speaker  16:11  
Lions games, okay,

Unknown Speaker  16:14  
okay,

Unknown Speaker  16:18  
nicely, time. Boom, okay, Justine TV show movie for the rest of your life. Oh, God, I have a five way tie here. I would say Seinfeld. Seinfeld. Okay, right back at you. One word advice for freshmen,

Unknown Speaker  16:36  
resiliency.

Unknown Speaker  16:38  
Kelly

Unknown Speaker  16:42  
actually read the chapter.

Unknown Speaker  16:46  
One Word. Read, okay, back to you, Kelly, animal you are most scared of

Unknown Speaker  16:54  
sharks, maybe, okay. Humans, okay, I like

Unknown Speaker  17:00  
it.

Unknown Speaker  17:02  
Back best way to top a hot dog,

Unknown Speaker  17:07  
ketchup. I'm sorry, hey, mustard. Chicago. Chicago would love you. Don't ask for ketchup in Chicago, that's where I live for a while. What do you do in your free time? You have some time first thing that you're like, what are you gonna do free time? Hang out with my dog. Dog. Hang out with my cat. Name, Sophie. Sophie. Ruth mulker,

Unknown Speaker  17:30  
yes, I love that name. Okay, back to you. If you could do one thing over from your past, you got to read you on something. Could it happen this morning? Could it happen when you're what would you do live in a big city for a year? Very good.

Unknown Speaker  17:48  
I don't

Unknown Speaker  17:50  
know. I kind of like my past.

Unknown Speaker  17:54  
No regrets, no, not really. That's why I'm here. Okay, okay, good, you have to answer

Unknown Speaker  18:04  
the quirkiest thing about you,

Unknown Speaker  18:14  
or weird,

Unknown Speaker  18:16  
the quirkiest thing about me, unique. I'm not real good at feelings like I'm just some kind of

Unknown Speaker  18:25  
whatever. I could use some of that. Sometimes that's good.

Unknown Speaker  18:30  
Oh, I if somebody has some hyper fixation on any topic, I want to listen to them talk about that. Ad nauseam.

Unknown Speaker  18:40  
Interesting. Yeah, is that real? Oh, yeah, she'll listen to Yeah, anything that's niche and obscure. I'm like, Tell me more. Okay, I like, this is so unique. All right, these are some of my favorite, weirdest thing you've ever eaten.

Unknown Speaker  18:57  
Probably, they were for sale at Hot Topic. Back in the day, they had those dehydrated crickets that were Salt and Vinegar flavored, nice. I love it. Yeah, it's good.

Unknown Speaker  19:10  
Good meaning you're like, you want to go buy some good I would totally try. Okay, yeah, that's fine. Let's get some cricket for lunch. Cricket on the barbie. I would go on one of those shows where you try weird food. I would do it for sure. Make a note of that, because if I happen to be in charge of, like, the next thing at a all staff thing, we are doing some crazy eating thing. Fear Factor, yes, Fear Factor ish. Sign me up. All right.

Unknown Speaker  19:35  
I don't, I don't know, crazy food.

Unknown Speaker  19:41  
Nothing's Great. What like? What's crazy, though, nothing's crazy. Something really hot, something some type of an, Oh, I did go into one of those hot sauce stores in New Orleans where you had to sign the waiver for the ghost pepper sauce. Did you do it? Yeah. How was it terrible?

Unknown Speaker  19:57  
Did it even taste or just didn't know? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
Just burns for the rest of the day. That's brutal. Well, you did it though. Okay? Biggest pet peeve,

Unknown Speaker  20:10  
people who don't follow through on what they say they're gonna do good one. Justine pet peeve, sharing a tub of butter with someone and they leave the crumbs from their knife. Oh, yes, I know what you're talking about, right there. Okay, last one describe yourself in three words,

Unknown Speaker  20:29  
creative,

Unknown Speaker  20:33  
obsessive,

Unknown Speaker  20:36  
kind.

Unknown Speaker  20:38  
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  20:41  
Um,

Unknown Speaker  20:43  
I would say

Unknown Speaker  20:47  
courageous,

Unknown Speaker  20:50  
outspoken and intelligent,

Unknown Speaker  20:53  
awesome, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you so much for and ladies for going behind the curtain with us.

Unknown Speaker  21:03  
All right, we got one more segment. It's a little competitive. Is that okay with y'all Yes, okay, we are going to pick something. Well, first, I'm not going to tell you what we're doing, because that might change this. I need you to pick a topic, something that you know a lot about.

Unknown Speaker  21:20  
Together we know just first one, first one to give me a topic. They use it. Yeah, just give me a topic.

Unknown Speaker  21:27  
School. We both know a lot about education. Yep, we're pretty good at it. Not a topic. You don't hold on. I'm just trying to take out this game. We play Kylie. What do you got for me? I got it name as many universities in the state is Michigan as you can love it. All right, we're gonna, this is how we play this game. It's called Showtime. Show us what you know, ladies, you're in education. All right, so here we go. We're gonna start going to go back and forth. You name a university I love that, Kylie in the state of Michigan, you have three seconds to say, the next university in the state of Michigan. If you repeat, game's over. The other person wins. If you, if you stall out,

Unknown Speaker  22:05  
the other person wins. And I'll just, kind of, I'll kind of go 123, okay, just so, you know, you may think, Oh, we're gonna crush this. We're gonna go on for like 2030 we've done this with people very confident. They've tapped out at like three, like, like, like, restaurants. No, maybe it wasn't restaurants. So

Unknown Speaker  22:22  
you're gonna start, okay, then you're gonna go three seconds, no repeats. Universities in the state of Michigan, we are about to have them show us what, what they know. Kelly begin, University of Michigan, clear, University Michigan State, University Western Michigan, University Eastern Michigan, University, Central Michigan, University, Wayne State University, Kettering University. I like Northwood University, Alma College, northern

Unknown Speaker  22:53  
Hillsdale, Michigan Tech,

Unknown Speaker  22:59  
I would say time

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
is up.

Unknown Speaker  23:04  
It happens like that. I thought you were gonna You said

Unknown Speaker  23:10  
Albion, that whole conference, it's tough. I know, dear Lord, are you guys? Y'all good? It was all competitive. We're good. Okay, you good? Got my alma mater. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker  23:22  
Second on that. Valley, I love

Unknown Speaker  23:24  
thank you guys for playing. It's hard to do that on the spot, really, you guys. But they lasted literally 1010, rounds more than other people who like literally. That was a hard topic, in my opinion, compared to what we've had. They did awesome. Okay. Lastly, the moment our audience has been waiting for. It is our trivia challenge. If you guys are comfortable, I'm going to have you actually share. Actually share the trivia question, since you came up with it, after they share the trivia question. Audience, go to what you hear at student life@cleary.edu

Unknown Speaker  23:52  
the first person that responds correctly will get a Jimmy John's gift card from our main sponsor. And they don't even know they are but we have gift cards from them. So they're our sponsor. Kylie, yep, you good. We still got gift cards for them. Yes, student life@cleary.edu

Unknown Speaker  24:06  
Would one of you like to articulate the trivia question we talked about? Do you remember? Sure, okay, so we want you to name the number of competitive event categories that you can choose from in DECA for the 2026, competitive season. So how many total categories are there? Love it, deca, collegiate. Deca, collegiate. Deca. That's a key phrase. I'm

Unknown Speaker  24:32  
not going to repeat that, because it'll I'll butcher it. So ladies, that's it. Oh, all right, that's, that's what we got. Thank you so much for being here. How do you feel? Do you feel? Do you feel like this is just like, you know, awesome. The highlight of your thinking of all the colleges I visited before that are rushing back to me now, it's gonna haunt you. It really does.

Unknown Speaker  24:53  
It's okay. Yes, you did really this was fun. Good job. We really appreciate you all being here. This is.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
An awesome Kylie, anything from you before we piece out?

Unknown Speaker  25:04  
Rogers. All right, here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being a part of this show till next time. 123, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai