Does the_meta() HAVE to display results in UL fashion?

I am customizing a theme and wanted my featured posts to display a new custom meta field I created instead of the the_author() by default.

It works great, but my layout is being compromised since the UL is shoving the div taller than it needs to be.

The example is here.

Look at the top where it shows two posts: “Test” and “About Us”.

The About Us uses the new the_meta() code I added, but it reads in an unordered list. Any way it can read as just a simple line of text?

Thanks!