Two months ago, Kendall Campus President Bryan Stewart took Athletic Director Mike Balado on a tour of the speech lab.
During the visit, Paul Klein—the lab’s manager—suggested Stewart host a podcast to feature the faculty, staff and students at Kendall Campus.
Stewart loved the idea and Kendall Speaks was born.
“This is a huge campus with [more than] 20,000 students and it’s hard sometimes to get programs and events out, and I thought this would be a natural way to hit a different segment of our student population,” Stewart said.
For each show, Stewart and Cristina Saez-Aguirre, who serves as the head writer of the podcast, prepare about 15 questions. Episodes range from 25 to 30 minutes.
Norman Klein, a tutor in the writing center at Learning Resources, designed the podcast’s logo, which is a blue star outlined in white with a yellow microphone at the center and Kendall Speaks written below.
Paul Klein serves as executive producer, overseeing production of the show and editing of segments. Alex Bello, the podcast’s producer, checks the sound levels and records.
“I just want it to grow … and get more people to listen and to find out all the great things that are happening here at Kendall Campus,” Paul Klein said. “We have a fantastic product. I just want to get it out there and bring more people in to record and to get their voices out there.”
The show’s set is simple. It features a few chairs, a RODECaster Pro 2 soundboard and a RODECaster microphones.
Recording began in September. The first episode, which can be found on the Speech Lab’s Youtube channel, was released on Sept. 11. It features the Kendall student government association.
Guests included president Yosdany Angulo-Cartas, vice president Mia Salas, treasurer Sofia Lozano, director of public speaking and engagement Sofia Tarno, president pro tempore Michelle Zimmerman and SGA advisor Karen Ramirez.
They discussed their experiences at the college, including clubs and extracurriculars they have joined, campus events, scholarships opportunities and also chatted about social media’s effect on mental health and their favorite movies.
“[The podcast] provides a direct channel for students to share their thoughts and be heard by both peers and administration,” Angulo-Cartas said.
Upcoming episodes will feature the School of Global Business, the School of Engineering & Technology, the ACCESS department and The Reporter.
In the future, Stewart hopes to release Kendall Speaks every Friday on other platforms such as Spotify and add a video component.
“What I hope happens is that maybe [students] start talking about it to their friends, and maybe there’s excitement. ‘Hey, what’s next week’s podcast?’ ” Stewart said. “I would love it if people start coming to me and saying, Hey, I’d love to be on that podcast. To me, that would mean that we’re hitting the right audience.”
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