Podcast listeners say that podcasts offer an easy way to consume content while commuting to work, exercising at the gym, or relaxing at home. A dedicated team of staff members at the Douglas and Judith Krupp Library uses the popular content platform to help capture and spotlight Bryant faculty scholarship in a new collection, the Bryant Faculty Spotlight.
Each episode features an interview with a Bryant faculty member, providing a window into their research, its real-world impacts, as well as challenges they met along the way.
“We really wanted to help put the great work our faculty is doing out into the world.”
Launched in 2019 in collaboration with University Relations, the podcast has grown along with the team that now oversees it. Not to be slowed by the pandemic, the team reimagined the project when COVID-19 posed logistical challenges. A new lineup of episodes are to be released with a renewed focus on scholarship, and their list of potential projects continues to grow, say the team members:
- Sam Simas, Digital Services and Research Librarian
- Wendy Smith-Stenhouse, Library Assistant
- Adriana Minacapilli, Library Assistant
- Trish Lombardi, Assistant Director, Collection Management and Digital Services
Simas, host of the series and one of its original creators, noted the team's collective efforts as integral to the success of the series. “We were able to challenge ourselves and help each other work ‘outside the box’ to produce something unique,” says Simas of the collection. “We really wanted to help put the great work our faculty is doing out into the world.”
Adds Lombardi, “All four of us have unique talents that we’re bringing together. It’s been a great experience to be able to harness that for a shared goal – the library’s mission and vision to preserve and make available the scholarship and legacy of Bryant.”
Connecting to a broader audience
Faculty, too, have welcomed the opportunity to be featured in the Spotlight. “It’s an opportunity to talk about the work that we do in ways that connect to a broader audience,” says Michael Roberto, DBA, Trustee Professor of Management, the first interviewee after the team pivoted to an all-audio format. Roberto's interview focused on his recent case study about the Boeing 737 Max crisis and how shifting workplace culture and changing priorities can contribute to failures at large companies. “We have a lot of exciting work being done, so it’s great to have another way to showcase the ideas we’re discussing in our research and in the classroom,” Roberto says.
Episodes in the collection include the following, but you can find the full list of Spotlight episodes here:
- Maura Coughlin, Ph.D., Professor of English and Cultural Studies, who spoke about her book, Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene in Nineteenth Century Art and Visual Culture, and how art and visual culture can be used to relate 19th-century preoccupations with ecosystems to contemporary environmental concerns.
- Brian Blais, Ph.D., Professor of Science and Technology, who spoked about his book, Statistical Inference for Everyone, an open textbook that approaches introductory statistical inference in a novel way.
- Provost and Chief Academic Officer Glenn Sulmasy, J.D., LL.M., who spoke about his vision for pedagogy and academic excellence.
- Michael Bryant, Ph.D., Professor of History and Social Sciences and former Assistant Staff Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force, who discussed his book, A World History of War Crimes: From Antiquity to the Present.
- Martha Kuhlman, Ph.D., Professor of English and Cultural Studies, who discussed her book, Comics of the New Europe: Reflections and Intersections and the development of the graphic novel genre in Eastern Europe.
Says Lombardi, “Our role on campus is more behind the scenes, so it's been nice to connect with and learn about all of these talented faculty members we have here. It’s been really amazing for us.”
