Once a week, President Scott L. Wyatt and Steve Meredith, Assistant to the President for Institutional Effectiveness, release a new episode of their podcast ‘The President’s Podcast’,” or “Solutions for Higher Education.”
The podcast, which can be found in full with a transcript here, as well as on Apple Podcasts and Google Play Music, tackles issues in higher education, and as the name implies, looks for solutions.
Current episodes include “College and University Rankings,” “Free Speech and the College Campus” and “Is college still worth the cost?” Episodes are generally 10-15 minutes. Complex issues, like free speech in colleges, might go upwards of 20-plus minutes.
“The President’s Podcast” came about due to three separate reasons: a love of thinking about ideas, a love of discussing those ideas and a need and want to engage with the campus.
“This just seemed like a convenient way to do it, to create a podcast to share some of my thoughts and ideas,” Wyatt said.
The podcast will include, “things of national interest … the kinds of things we are doing on campus … and ideas that people don’t understand very well,” Wyatt said. “That’s why we did the podcast on free speech, because I found so many people on campus who had no idea what speech was allowable.”
Episodes are loosely planned in order to retain the ability to introduce time-sensitive interests, and may include “intense” topics.
“We plan on trying to hit some difficult issues … the one area I want to be careful of is to not get into overly political things,” Wyatt said. “I think if I make a statement, then it’s like ‘that’s the institution’s opinion.’ I hope I can find a balance.”
Wyatt is working towards the engagement that was an original reason for beginning this podcast.
“My hope is, is that if there is an idea that comes out of this that somebody disagrees with, that they’ll send me an e-mail, or if somebody says ‘I have a great idea for a podcast,’ I hope they send me ideas,” Wyatt said.
To engage with President Wyatt about his podcast, or to send him your comments, ideas or dissents, e-mail him at wyatt@suu.edu.
Story By
Andrew Leavitt
life@suunews.com
