WRIGHT LIFE: Radio Station Spotlight | Photo by Kelsie Tomlinson | The Wright State Guardian
Founded in 1977, Wright State University’s (WSU) radio station, WWSU 106.9, is staffed by a team of student professionals who call themselves a second family, bringing important and commemorative content to campus.
Who are they?
The team at the radio headquarters at 018 Student Union says that there is something for everyone across all their multimedia platforms, from podcasts to talk shows to live streams, WWSU’s content is accessible for any student to consume.
“We are very proud of our versatility and our diversity of content. We offer content from podcasts about politics to music, live DJs playing Friday and Saturday nights, to live talk shows with students here on campus just wanting to get their opinions out. We do a lot of sports talk shows as well, whether that’s about Wright State or in the general sports world,” said General Manager Shea Neal.
On Sept. 29, 2021, the station participated in World College Radio Day, streaming 17 hours of content on the air, and was awarded the Spirit of College Radio award, one of seven in the U.S.
“I remember when college radio day first started, I was always trying to win the award but never was successful. Glad to see the station is thriving, involving and contributing to the community. Congrats!” Sean Martin, a WWSU alumni said.
What do they do?
In the U.S., less than 10% of colleges have a college-affiliated radio station, according to Neal, and, WWSU 106.9 brings a unique voice and perspective to the student body and the loyal listenership of the station over the past 45 years exhibits that fact.
The station is consistently creating new avenues of content, an example of which would be an upcoming Friday night show entitled TGIF hosted by Chief Engineer, Patrick Schmalstig. They described the show, which will air from 6:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m., as an unscripted free form community show for the student body to connect with.
“The show is hugely interactive. We keep it open to a phone line if anybody wants to call in. People can also interact through the website through the chat platform,” Schmalstig said.
Schmalstig described the core value of the station in three words as, “Freedom of Speech,” and the station prides itself on its integrity of reflecting each individual facet of the student body
“One notable show we had students from six different religions all on the air to talk about religion. We had an atheist, a Baptist, a Christian, an agnostic, a Muslim and a fundamentalist. We had a really interesting discussion, and we learned a lot about each other’s perspectives on spirituality and religion,” Schmalstig said.
To join in
“It’s a common stereotype that a lot of people think that in order to be part of WWSU, you have to be this on-air extroverted talk show host. That’s not true. I would say that we will find a way to incorporate what you love into something that you can do here. Odds are we’ve done something similar to it, or we’re thinking about doing something like that. And if we aren’t, we’re always open to new ideas as well,” Neal said.
He encouraged any students interested in the station to join.
