For those who may have missed the announcement earlier in the week, we are in the middle of National College Radio Week. To honor it, NEFolk has turned on for this week reminders of all independent college radio programs in its Calendar (reminders are normally off, turned on only when a specific program has a "special").
We urge you to break new ground and sample some of the finest folk, Celtic, bluegrass, old time and acoustic blues programming available.
Like community radio, independent college radio stations welcome members of the community. Get involved, you'll have a great experience.
If you are listening to corporate or so-called "public" radio you only have yourself to blame, there is a third model. Seek out independent college (and community) radio stations. For a complete listing of independent college and community radio stations in the Northeast, click here.
The Lasting Impact of College Radio Participation
WHRC at Haverford College – the Station that Changed My Life (1987 photo by R. Waits)
Tuesday was the second annual College Radio Day and in light of that a number of people pontificated on the state of college radio. In apiece in Vice magazine, former college radio DJ A Wolfe interviews the Program Director atWIDR (Western Michigan University) and discusses the importance of college radio, saying:
“Anyhow, it’s National College Radio Station Week, and to show appreciation to the basements and studios where many of us in the music industry got our start, we’re talking with program director Kevin Yelvington of my alma mater, 89.1 WIDR-FM Kalamazoo, from lovely Western Michigan University. This sixty-year-old station was much more instrumental on my future than my actual undergraduate degree, so take note, colleges and universities across the country: We only went to your shitty school because of the radio station. Do not take it away…”
In the interview Yelvington also talks about how working at the radio station provides real world skills, saying, “It’s not that my education isn’t important, but I’ve learned so much here that’s applicable to the real world, because it’s in the real world and we’re facing very real problems here. In fact, if it weren’t for WIDR, I probably wouldn’t be doing as well in school as I am now, and maybe wouldn’t be going to school altogether.”
For those of you who have participated in college radio, how important was it to your college experience? What kind of influence or impact did it have on your future career?
1 comment:
I was a DJ at the college radio station at Worcester State College (Worcester State University now), WSCW, from 1992 to about 1994. I didn't move into radio for a career. I don't have a radio voice. I did love my time on college radio and made some great friends while having a lot of fun. The real impact on my life was that it broadened my taste in music and completely changed my preferred genre. I think back on those times as some of the best days of my life. Some of my friends from WSCW have moved into commercial radio. Rick Johnson at WCLZ in Maine being one.
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