\u201cAudio is a powerful medium. You can bring it everywhere. It leaves your hands free, your eyes free,\u201d says Jason McMullan, the station\u2019s program coordinator. \u201cThe heavy audio consumers have moved on to personal devices. They\u2019re picking what they\u2019re going to listen to and the order it happens. Podcasting is our way to make as much of our content as possible in that format.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie Smart \u201918 (CLAS), a journalism major who is news director for WHUS, had been thinking about creating a podcast when he read an online item about UConn history. He asked Helen Stec \u201918 (CLAS), a history and English major who is part of the news staff, to help develop the idea while each of them was involved with an internship that provided opportunities to further develop the skills required to produce a podcast \u2013 Smart working last summer on news stories at WNPR<\/a>, Connecticut\u2019s local public radio station, and Stec conducting research this semester at the Mansfield Historical Society.<\/p>\n Smart met with McMullan to discuss the options for program format and length, and the technical requirements for the podcast. Both are avid podcast listeners, and they reviewed the production elements for a successful podcast that can build an audience. The result is a conversational story-telling format with interviews, crisp writing, and varied music in the background, akin to long-form National Public Radio stories. Each podcast is between 10 and 15 minutes in length.<\/p>\n The first two episodes of \u201cThe Story of Storrs\u201d trace the origins of UConn as The Storrs Agricultural School and the transition to Connecticut\u2019s land grant institution as the Storrs Agricultural College. These podcasts serve as the foundation for the production. They include readings from letters and documents found in the University Archives, which are part of Archives & Special Collections<\/a> at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. There are also comments from interviews conducted with Bruce M. Stave, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus and author of the 2006 history of UConn, Red Brick in the Land of Steady Habits,<\/em> as well as from Betsy Pittman, archivist in Archives & Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center; Dennis Pierce, director of UConn Dining Services; Noel Miller, president of the Connecticut State Grange<\/a>, a fraternal organization that supports the agricultural community; and Nathan Sorber, co-editor of the 2013 book The Land Grant College and the Reshaping of American Higher Education<\/a> <\/em>(Transaction Publishers). \u201cThere\u2019s two types of episodes that we\u2019re trying to do. There are those that take a short snapshot of time, like the land grant and the Vietnam War protests, and then there\u2019s the long survey ones, like the history of Jonathan and the history of women at the University,\u201d says Smart. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do different formats.\u201d<\/p>\n Future episodes of \u201cThe Story of Storrs\u201d will focus on various aspects of campus life, landmark events, and personalities that are part of the 135-year history of UConn. The most recently posted episode is \u201cUConn and the Vietnam War,\u201d which examines campus protests during the mid-1960s. Stec and Smart are researching episodes on the history of women on campus, the impact of the House Un-American Activities Committee<\/a> hearings on Storrs in the early 1950s, and the Jonathan the Husky mascot.<\/p>\n![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Podcasters160406a057cropped-1024x682.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Helen](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Podcasters160406a053cropped-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Podcasters160406a063cropped-1024x683.jpg\")
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