Shows
The Sideline Eye PodcastChampionship final reviewPeter Nugent and I discuss the Intermediate final while I hear from the Collegeland camp as well2024-10-2017 minThe Sideline Eye PodcastJunior Championship R1 Round UpI review this week's JFC action and also speak to Collegeland boss Paul Doyle2024-08-1119 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 6: Making Space for Queer Students at an HBCUMaking Space for Queer Students at an HBCUThis final episode of Collegeland takes us to North Carolina Central University, a Historically Black College and University, where we talk with three people who have been critical to developing the LGBTA Resource Center. Co-hosted by Lisa Levenstein and Tiffany Holland, the episode highlights the importance of dedicated spaces for queer students on college campuses. Our guests discuss the challenges and the joys involved in carving out space for difficult conversations and fostering supportive communities.About our Guests: Jennifer Williams serves as the Director of t...2022-05-1735 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 5: Beyond the Campus Counseling CenterCOVID has brought new attention to what many are calling the “mental health crisis" on college campuses. A 2020 study found that nearly 40% of college students experienced depression and 13% have had suicidal ideations.The week Lisa Levenstein talks with Gary Glass, licensed psychologist, and director of counseling and career services at Oxford College of Emory University, about the challenges facing students and the increasing pressure on faculty to address mental health concerns. Glass calls on us to expand our thinking from how to diagnose and treat individuals in crisis to how to build a broader campus community and cu...2022-04-0534 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 4: Living the Contradictions of Precarious LaborStudents know who their favorite professors are on campus but they rarely know that up to 70% of college faculty are contract workers, often paid by the course, with very low pay and no job security.To put a personal face on the issues facing contingent faculty, we talk to Jennifer Hyland Wang, a long-time non-tenure-track faculty member at the University of Wisconsin. Jennifer balances parenting, teaching, research, and organizing work as co-chair of the Precarious Labor Organization within the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.Jennifer explains what it is like to “live the contradictions” of a...2022-02-1443 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 3: Revitalizing Dakota LanguageTeachers of indigenous languages encounter a difficult problem: how to use the classroom, so long a site of white supremacist , violence and language loss for native people, to step outside of a Western viewpoint and rebuild native ways of being?This week we hear from leaders in Dakota Language revitalization connected to the University of Minnesota, Šišóka Dúta and his former student and now colleague Raine Cloud.Dúta and Cloud share their stories of learning Dakota Language as adults and how they have become teachers of the language. They also are starting an in...2021-12-1033 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 2: Studying Under the Shadow of DeportationAccording to federal and most state laws, undocumented students can enroll in higher education in the United States, but do they feel like they belong there?Our guest, Shirley Leyro, critical criminologist and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Borough of Manhattan--CUNY asked that question in a study she conducted on the challenges facing students without citizenship status. Lisa talked with Shirley about how her experiences as a first-generation Latinx professor helped her ask critical research questions that others have overlooked.Shirley then helps Lisa and Nan think about the impact of this time of...2021-11-1932 min
CollegelandS2 Episode 1: Accommodations DeniedAs campuses across the country have returned to in-person education this fall, requests by faculty for accommodations have been routinely ignored or denied. So for our first episode for Season 2, we reached out to three members of the Accessible Campus Action Alliance (ACAA), an organization of disability studies scholars and activists that has called on universities to do better with their statement “Beyond High Risk,” first released back in June of 2020 and updated in July of 2021.Aimi Hamraie, Jonathan Sterne & Bess Williamson challenge the celebration of being “back to normal” and the failing accommodations systems that have put fina...2021-10-1535 min
CollegelandBonus Episode: Life as a First-Gen PhDFor this special bonus episode, Nan and Lisa sit down with Season 1 producer Richelle Wilson to talk about her experience as a first-gen college student, the challenges of student loan debt and getting a PhD in a collapsing academic job market, and why she loves higher ed even though it doesn’t always love her back.Stay tuned for Season 2, coming your way soon!About our guestRichelle Wilson is a PhD candidate in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is writing a dissertation about IKEA...2021-09-1022 min
CollegelandEpisode 10: Meet Me at the LibraryLibraries are the information infrastructure of universities. And as with most infrastructure, the critical work they do is often invisible—that is, until something breaks.There’s a lot more to the library than meets the eye, so we asked Maura Seale, history librarian at the University of Michigan, to break it down for us. In true librarian fashion, she provides a wealth of information and perspective about what university libraries do and why they are so vital to the campus community.Throughout the conversation, Maura challenges the myth of librarians as enemies of the digi...2021-05-0742 min
CollegelandEpisode 9: Tales of a Campus HousekeeperYou’ve probably heard the horror stories about college dorms: late nights, loud parties, and lots of questionable bathroom antics.These campus living areas depend on the vital labor of housekeepers like Tracy Harter, who works at UNC Chapel Hill. She’s here to set the record straight about the students living in the dorms. Sure, they sometimes give her a run for her money. But for Tracy, it’s all about the care and connection: the students have her back, and she has theirs.Tracy has long participated in her local union and was an out...2021-04-2337 min
CollegelandEpisode 8: Beyond the Land-Grab UniversityLand-grant universities are the legacy of the Morrill Act of 1862, which gave states throughout the Midwest and West upwards of eleven million acres to establish colleges that would focus on agriculture and the “mechanic arts.” This opened up higher education to people all over the country.At least, that’s the narrative you’ll see in most U.S. history books.The truth is that these land-grant universities were more like “land-grab” universities, as Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone wrote in a widely circulated article for High Country News last summer. Not only are these campuses loc...2021-04-0949 min
CollegelandEpisode 7: Why University Presses MatterFew things say “college” more than a stack of books, and yet university presses remain one of the best-kept secrets on campus.To get a behind-the-scenes look into the world of academic publishing, we talk to John Sherer, director of the University of North Carolina Press. UNC Press has long been a pioneer in publishing books on African American history and gender and women’s studies. This past year, the press saw a surge in readership during the pandemic, and many UNC Press titles made their way onto Black Lives Matter reading lists.John explains how an...2021-03-2636 min
CollegelandEpisode 6: Food Insecurity on CampusAccording to a 2017 study, nearly half of all college students in the U.S. face food insecurity.That’s a huge problem. And it’s not just about food, either—many of these same students also experience housing insecurity or have other basic needs not being met as they struggle to pay skyrocketing tuition bills and expensive educational fees.These are students Paula Umaña meets every day through her work at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice in Philadelphia. She helps us unpack the reality of food insecurity on campus and urges college...2021-03-1243 min
CollegelandEpisode 5: Inside a University Vaccine LabDuring the COVID vaccine rollout in the U.S., major pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna have become household names. But did they really create these vaccines by themselves?Not by a long shot, says Dr. Deborah Fuller, a vaccinologist and professor of microbiology who runs her own lab at the University of Washington. She and her team have been working on DNA and RNA vaccine technology for years, laying the groundwork for the rapid, safe, and effective development of the COVID vaccines currently on the market, all of which got their start at universities....2021-02-2639 min
CollegelandEpisode 4: ZoomversityRebecca Barrett-Fox tells us why she advised professors to “do a bad job of putting your courses online” in a blog post that went viral as colleges quickly pivoted to remote learning last March.***Among other things, 2020 was the year of the Great Virtual Shift, when college campuses across the country pivoted to emergency remote instruction in response to the pandemic coming to the United States in March, just before spring break.While Zoom classes have now become a regular fixture of university life, many instructors had a rocky beginning moving their courses onli...2021-02-1244 min
CollegelandEpisode 1: Dear PandemicWelcome to Collegeland!We started a podcast about higher education in the middle of a pandemic, so it’s only fitting that we kick off this first episode with our favorite campus scientist, Dr. Malia Jones.Malia is one of the creators of Dear Pandemic, a social media campaign and one-stop shop for practical, science-based information and advice about navigating life during COVID. She gives us an inside peek into the work of the “Nerdy Girls” team in combating the infodemic and keeping us all safe and sane.After the interview, co-hosts Nan and Li...2021-01-2949 min
CollegelandEpisode 2: Every Campus a RefugeWe speak with Dr. Diya Abdo from the Center for New North Carolinians about her work resettling refugees on college campuses.***College campuses are like cities unto themselves, and they have an abundance of resources to share with the surrounding community.That’s the expansive vision of Dr. Diya Abdo, who founded Every Campus a Refuge, a refugee resettlement program that places families in university housing and uses campus resources to help them thrive in their new community. Campuses should function as home spaces where everyone there can feel safe, Diya argues. She po...2021-01-2934 min
CollegelandEpisode 3: Student VotingJoe Biden won the U.S. presidential election, and we have students like Morehouse College’s Rick Hart to thank.***All eyes were on Georgia after they flipped blue for Biden/Harris in November and again as they voted in two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, in a historic runoff election earlier this month.But none of this was a sure thing. It took countless hours of local get-out-the-vote efforts by tireless volunteers like Rick Hart, a junior at Morehouse College in Atlanta, who this time last year was ge...2021-01-2942 min