The New Professor: How I Podcasted My Way Into Students' Lives (And How You Can, Too)

In 2017, one professor was given a task: find a way to make a giant, sprawling Research-1 university feel like a small liberal arts campus and do it for students that are spread out all across the region. After half a year of pondering how to accomplish this, he settled on an idea: podcasting. He saw it as an opportunity to bring himself and a sense of belonging into the lives of his students regardless of their location. Two years and dozens of episodes later, the pod is going strong.

In this session, he will tell his story, explaining precisely how he does it, the winding road that led him to the current iteration of his podcast, and will share some comments from students and other members of his university community (and beyond) about the pod. You as a participant will then be given your own task: come up with some ideas about how you could do the same for your community. What would it sound like? Where is the need? What story do you have to tell that could bring your community closer, regardless of distance? Maybe it's interviewing people and maybe it's simply sharing your own story. There are no rules.

Don't have a fancy setup at home or a studio available? No problem. We'll also discuss some low- or no-budget ideas and podcasting 'hacks' to help you get your feet wet, too.

After this 10-minute brainstorming and reflection period, we will come back together and share our ideas, get suggestions and feedback from one another, and hopefully even make connections (and find some guests for our soon-to-be podcasts!).

On top of all this, the session will be recorded and aired as an episode of the The New Professor podcast with shout-outs to everyone involved that wants to begin their own pods. We're all in this together!