I heard that Proctor used to have a radio station. I’ve seen pictures of the old radio station building to the right of Shirley Hall in old yearbooks, and Scott Allenby told me about this alum from 1941 who started a radio club in the third floor of MLS. I thought to myself why do we not have that anymore? We have a student newspaper, The Hornet’s Nest, that discusses current issues once a month or so, but I wanted to bring back a forum for live, in person conversations about our community. 

I wanted to find a solution, so I talked to Scott, Proctor’s communications guy, about starting a podcast about all things Proctor. My vision was to create something that would live beyond just my senior year and be an ongoing medium where this community can engage in meaningful debate, conversations, and history lessons through a format people enjoy. Once I decided I was positive I wanted to do this I talked to Scott about creating an independent class for the fall and we got to work getting the podcast going.

During the early fall, we were planning the schedule and figuring out what topics we wanted to discuss, how I would interview people, what questions to ask, and how to format both the interviews and the podcast itself. The more I listened to other podcasts, and the more I realized the scope of the work involved in a project like this, I quickly realized it would be great to have a co-host. I talked to Sean Slick ‘20, and he loved the idea of the podcast and quickly jumped onboard with me.  

Last week, we published our first episode. It’s not perfect, and we have a ton to learn about editing, but it is a start. As Scott keeps reminding me, this project is not solely about the final product, but about the learning that is taking place along the way. In this episode, Sean and I interviewed Lori Patriacca ‘01, Proctor’s Multicultural Coordinator, about the recent AIM Survey students, employees, parents, trustees, and alumni took part in and her on-going work promoting conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion at Proctor. We encourage you to give the episode a listen at the link below. 

We have a couple of great episodes in the works, including an interview with Athletic Director Gregor Makechnie about the Special Olympics Fun Day coming up on Saturday, an episode on Sportsmanship and Holderness Day, and a deep dive into the history of Mountain Classroom at Proctor.

We are very excited to bring the best Stories of Proctor to you, and encourage you to pass along suggestions for future episodes by emailing us HERE.