By Karlie Sneed
Media is quickly playing more of a role in campus life,
and due to this fact, McPherson College will introduce its very own podcast studio this fall. The studio will be part of the new “Mac Media,” the college’s effort to combine all forms of student media. It will consist of both
the Spectator (print and online newspaper) and
the new podcast studio. “The Spectator and the podcast studio will work individually, but also in tandem to provide more experiences for student media in different ways of student journalism for our students, and faculty and staff as well,” said Spectator faculty advisor Julia Largent.
The creation of the studio was developed by Largent along with Nathan Pollard, Becki Bowman, and conversations with
Jd Bowman and John Verssue. The new podcast studio was funded through an on-campus grant. Largent said: “IRC provides annual grants to different departments on campus… they’re grants that your budget wouldn’t be able to allow for. So, Nathan, Becki and I wrote a grant specifically to start the podcast studio, and we received the grant. With that we were able
to purchase all at once all the equipment we needed and not spread it out over years, which is what we would needed to have done if we were trying
to do it out of our own departmental budget.”
Because this is a new addition to the college’s campus, Largent said many things remain “up in the air.” As of now they have yet to finalize staffing and recording schedules. However, the goals of Mac Media are known. It provides a gateway for public speaking, and offers alternate forms of journalism. The podcast studio’s location will be in Hess Fine Arts Center, between the band and choir rooms and will be open to the campus community next fall.
