By Micah Wheeler

Quincy University is beginning to have more and more students actively involved in production and creating content for many different media platforms. 

Podcasting is one of those platforms. According to Google, podcasting was created for making digital recordings available to be downloaded and listened to at any time. The style of a podcast is different from most platforms. A podcast can be either heard live or can be placed in an audio file and be distributed via MP3 that allows it to be accessed whenever.

The idea for an alumni focused podcast was first introduced to the university advancement team when its members attended a conference in December of 2019.

“The Quincy University Advancement team went to a conference in December and learned about how podcasting can help universities connect with their alumni,” Jen Wingerter, university writer and editor said. “Using podcasts will allow the university to tell alumni stories, update alumni on faculty research and expertise, as well as help alumni feel connected to what is happening on campus.” 

With the alumni being the main target for the university podcast, the advancement team’s plan of action is to get as many of the students around the world that graduated from QU to come in and talk with them about their experience at the university. 

According to Matthew Bergman who is the director of development, starting a podcast will allow the community to “continue to engage with our alumni around the world,” and having a podcast enables the university to be connected with alums no matter where they are.

Quincy University has history behind the city as a whole and the university has just as much. Many great people walked through the halls of QU and as the years go by the stories begin to pile higher and higher. The advancement office is more than excited to present an outlet for some of those stories to be heard.

“We will look to share stories where we can dig deeper than we normally can on our social media channels, in our electronic newsletter and in our alumni magazine. We have seen podcasting grow in popularity and we felt this was a way we can share the QU story with a wider range of alumni and friends,” Bergman said.

However, the podcast is not only for alums. The advancement team encourages Friars, students, and faculty to engage with the podcast at any time to discuss anything campus related. They are already actively working on coming up with new topics, ideas, and concepts for episodes to be streamed.

“Our team has already started thinking of the topics we want to cover and we are looking for alumni, Friars, faculty and students who we might want to interview,” Bergman said.

Athletes around the school are excited about the commencement of the podcast as well and even have ideas for some episodes. One of QU’s football players, Imori Heard, came up with having a sports podcast to talk about what it’s like being an athlete in Quincy.

“I feel like it would be cool to have something like that on campus for letting these new people from different areas know what to expect when they get here,” Heard said.

You can find student produced podcasts on the QUMedia Podcast Network.