Season 1 (May 2018 - April 2019)

Episode 13 - RC Interlude featuring junior Ajilan Potter (16:16) April 1, 2019

The charm of East Quad is on superdrive when you walk into the building and hear the smooth and buttery playing of a Satie or Rachmaninoff tune on the grand piano in the front concourse. When you tickle the ivories on more obscure video game music, like RC junior Ajilan Potter does, it can bring your fellow gamers out of the woodwork. This installment in the RC Podcast is called an RC Interlude, a shorter piece that gives a feeling for the atmosphere in the daily Residential College East Quad experience. You'll get to know Aji, what he plays and why, and how it ties into an expansive artistic project he's working on. This RC Interlude was conceived, produced, written, and edited by RC first-year and Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program student, Zain Hameed. 

Episode 12 - The RC Telling It Program: Empowering Community Through the Arts (27:04) March 1, 2019

Theory and practice converge in Telling It, a free after-school program that facilitates six groups of youth in four locations in Washtenaw County. U-M students enroll in a course led by RC faculty member, Telling It founder Deb Gordon-Gurfinkel, taking them on a journey that touches on sociology, education theory, current political events, psychology, and self-awareness. Then they go out into the community, along with Deb and a social worker, to create engaging activities that help the youth express themselves, oftentimes working through trauma. RC Podcast Episode 12 takes you into engaging conversations with Deb, a former Telling It student, and RC director Jon Wells, plus you'll hear from a major partner to the program, Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry L. Clayton, and a handful of Telling It youth poets. 

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Episode 11 - Janet Hegman Shier and Olga López Cotín on the RC Language Programs (28:10) February 1, 2019

Some of the things that give the RC its mystique are the rigorous language course sequences offered in Japanese, Russian, German, French and Spanish. Aiming for language proficiency, students generally enroll in two semesters of eight-credit courses that include grammar, speaking and writing training, supplemented by lunch tables and coffee hours conducted in the language. After passing the extensive proficiency exam, language learners enroll in a readings course, much like a first year writing seminar they may enroll in at a foreign university. Olga and Janet, two long-time members of the RC language faculty, explore why the RC teaches languages in this way. They shed light on course offerings that help students apply their language in altruistic and artistic real world settings. And they have fun addressing current students' curiosities about them. 

Read the transcript of this episode here. 

Episode 10 - Hoai An Pham, RC '19: #StopSpencer, and on being an STP Major (27:00) January 2, 2019

Hoai An Pham couldn't sit idly by after she heard that U-M was considering to allow Richard Spencer to speak on campus. She gathered with other student and community organizers in the coalition #StopSpencer whose aim was to give no platform for racism and hate speech at U-M or in SE Michigan. In the RC Podcast's 10th episode, RC senior Hoai An reflects on the lessons she learned while organizing as a student, as a Vietnamese American woman, and as someone who had to "unlearn" messages that had penetrated her beliefs. She also reveals her journey from pre-med to RC's Social Theory and Practice (STP) major, and gives us a sense for what it's like to be one of U-M's carillonneurs.  

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Episode 9 - Dhani Jones, RC '00, on Being a Pro Athlete, Entrepreneur, and Quintessential RC Thinker (26:44) December 5, 2018

Dhani may not have entirely chosen the RC - he chocks it up to the directive of a very influential alumna in his family - but he certainly has a lot to say about how the focus on liberal arts and the self-directed kind of learning he experienced in East Quad equipped him with the confidence to forge a very singular and high profile career since graduating in 2000. In Episode 9, Dhani joins one of his academic advisors and beloved retired RC admissions counselor, Lana Kanitz, as well as RC Podcast host, Robby Griswold, for a giggly stroll down memory lane. He shares some advice he gives to guests on his show, Adventure Capitalists on CNBC, and sheds light on his self-described "unexpected" career in football from playing for the Wolverines to joining multiple teams in the NFL. 

Read the transcript of the episode here.

Episode 7 - Developing a Voice: 2018 Robertson Lecturer, RC Alum, Nancy Blum '85 (27:15) October 1, 2018

When Nancy Blum came to the RC from Illinois, she wanted to pursue a career in service and decided to study psychology and womens studies. Well, as can happen, she fell for the creative arts while in East Quad and her work there, alongside her contributions to the U-M Human Sexuality Office, set her on a two-pronged course of professional development that eventually landed her a successful career - as an artist. In this interview, Nancy reveals a bit about how her views on gender are subtly insinuated in the work in the fall 2018 show in the RC Art Gallery. She expresses what a liberal arts education gave her that an art school education could not have. And she gives us a taste of what she covered in her October 2018 Residential College Robertson Lecture, "Not Separate from the Street: Nancy Blum and Public Art Installation". 

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Episode 6 - Introducing Sascha Crasnow (25:40) September 1, 2018

The RC is a community of scholars, of explorers. We relish the chance to bring new people into the circle including, especially, new students each September, and new faculty members. For the sixth episode of the RC Podcast (25:40), we bring you an interview with our Arts and Ideas lecturer, Sascha Crasnow, who joined the RC in fall 2018 and also teaches in the LSA Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. Sascha brings her expertise in contemporary Islamic arts to the A&I program, contributing to further expanding the curriculum beyond Europe and Western civilization. Sascha's academic journey resonates with many of our students, alumni, and faculty, namely, in the fact that she has more interests than she has time to fully explore! 

Episode 5 - Interview with Harvey Slaughter, RC Class of '72 (28:30) August 2, 2018

One of the purposes of the RC podcast is to preserve the oral history of the Residential College and East Quadrangle. It's our pleasure to offer episode five that introduces you to Dr. Harvey Slaughter, RC class of 1972, who created a very distinguished undergraduate career including much activism for the advancement of Black students and building structures of academic support for his peers at the University of Michigan. Harvey embodies intellectual curiosity, concern for social welfare, and hunger for organizational change and these qualities were cultivated and fostered while he was a student in the RC - all the while being the only Black male student in his class. 

For information related to this episode, visit this link.

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Episode 4 - Anna Clark and The Poisoned City (26:35) July 2, 2018

Meet Anna Clark, '03 RC Creative Writing and LSA Art History alumna. In this episode, Anna describes her July 2018 book, The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy, including some of her key research findings, the process she underwent to write the book, and what she hopes the book will contribute to in terms of raising awareness about this crisis and others that may inevitably occur due to similar circumstances throughout the United States. 

Music credit: Jay St. Thomas, aka AudioBinger, Music Link

Episode 3 - Shakespeare in the Arb's Romeo and Juliet (26:00) June 1, 2018

Hear the music, soliloquies, and creative forces - human, natural, and otherwise - behind the successful annual program, Shakespeare in the Arb (SITA). Celebrating its 18th season, SITA is excited to premiere Romeo and Juliet in the lineup that has included A Midsummer Nights Dream, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing, among others. Get to know the director, dramaturg, and some lead actors who brought this blockbuster to life in Nichols Arboretum June 2018. 

Read the transcript of this episode here.

Episode 2 - Interview with Jon Wells, RC Director (18:35) May 18, 2018

The second episode introduces you to Jon Wells in terms of his early experiences that led him to study history, what research he's been up to lately, and about his experiences entering the RC through to his current tenure (through June 2019) as RC Director. 

Read the transcript of the episode here. 

Episode 1 - Stina Perkins and Darian Razdar (23:00) May 2, 2018

The pilot takes you on a veritable tour of the RC, and will drop you "in media res" in the RC student experience. You'll learn about RC Forums, experiences with faculty and courses in the RC that were instrumental in their undergrad careers, how students enjoy the resources of the larger College of Literature, Science, and the Arts while getting the benefit of the tight-knit community in the RC - and, about some fun "oddities" that may appear that add to the charm and delight of the Residential College! 

Read the transcript of the pilot here.