Podcasters of Reno: Nevada Stories
Nevada Stories, a new podcast produced in association with Wolf Pack Radio, doesn’t want their audience to just tune in for the episode, but to be involved in the process as well — by Sarah Parks
A Podcast About Students For Faculty
Nevada Stories is a podcast about students, but is meant for the staff and faculty of the university.
“I would say Nevada Stories is adding to the local cultural landscape by creating conversations between the VP of student services and a normal student,” said Caroline Ackerman, a journalism student and the General Manager at Wolf Pack Radio.
Wolf Pack Radio is a student-run, nonprofit radio station, broadcasting from the Joe Crowley Student Union at the University of Nevada, Reno.
“We want to increase the connection between faculty and the student population,” Ackerman said.
Nevada Stories began last semester when Dr. Ellis, the Vice President of Student Services, decided she wanted to see a student-based podcast that catered to professional staff members at the university. She wanted to create a space for students to share their experiences while being at Nevada. She teamed up with Wolf Pack Radio and production took off.
Every Student Has a Story
“Our tagline is ‘every student has a story’. So that’s our mission,” said Ackerman. “Every student has a completely different background, whether their story is about traveling here from a third world country and becoming a med student, or just coming to this university because they wanted to be by the mountains and ski. Everyone is unique and their perspectives are really amazing.”
Ackerman and other producers hope that these stories can help student-professor relationships on campus, by allowing the professors to find out what it’s like to be a student on campus.
During their first episodes, they interviewed students who came from different backgrounds. These included a veteran who had come back to take classes and a teen mom who was close to graduation. Recently, they have been doing more themed episodes, including episodes on international students and med school students.
Challenges of Building an Audience
“One of the med school students we were interviewing focused solely on snakes and working with snakes,” Ackerman said. “But then he said how he is deathly afraid of snakes. It was so fun listening to this interview. It was such a fascinating story.”
Ackerman says that it has been hard to start this production from scratch, and that there have been some bumps along the road, including how to communicate with professors and grow a listener base.
“Our normal audience for Wolf Pack Radio are undergraduate students, typically in the journalism or liberal arts schools,” said Ackerman. “It’s such a different reach to go from this audience to professional faculty and professors.”
Currently, they use social media to try to gain interest, but are looking into a newsletter as another option.
Join Nevada Stories
Ackerman hopes Nevada Stories become a staple at Wolf Pack Radio and generates more listenership in the years to come. Nevada Stories is open to accepting applications from students who may be interested in telling their stories, and from faculty who may want to host. Contact Wolf Pack Radio Nevada Stories here and listen to past episodes here.
