New WESU Program Shares Community Engagement Stories

For 85 years, WESU, Wesleyan’s campus radio station, has offered a mix of music and public affairs programming. This year, the station launched a new program, Engage Radio, to shine a light on the community-engaged work of its university partners and residents from across the greater Middletown community.

Broadcast bimonthly on Friday afternoons, Engage Radio has featured a blend of stories that has included artist in residence Sunny Jain talking about his music and the experience of South Asians globally; Center for Prison Education (CPE) Director Tess Wheelwright sharing the history and milestones of CPE; and community partner Donna Hylton, President and CEO of STEAM Train, discussing STEM-promoting programs for underrepresented groups in Middletown, among others.

“We thought Engage Radio would be a great way to highlight the work of partners that we’re connected to, [and] in a really tangible way, highlight the work of many of our student volunteers, faculty, and staff,” said Clifton Watson, director of the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships (JCCP) and co-host of the program.

Watson recalled walking into his first WESU staff meeting years ago and seeing how the station brings together a diverse range of community members, of all ages, who have contributed to the eclectic mix of programming and music for decades. Engage Radio, he said, is “also a way for us to be better connected to this community that has been built by way of the radio station’s work for a very, very long time.”

To plan Engage Radio’s programming, Watson and Station Manager Ben Michael, in collaboration with WESU’s board, follow the academic calendar to incorporate key events. During International Education Week in mid-November, for example, they featured a piece about the University Network for Human Rights, which sends students across the globe to engage in human rights advocacy initiatives, said Watson.

Students are instrumental to Engage Radio’s mission. Interns produce their own segments and bring to the program their talent and experience editing podcasts, managing social media platforms, and writing. For the second episode, Aoife Hogan ’25 produced a segment celebrating WESU’s eight decades on air with reflections from prior hosts. She shared that working at WESU for three years had taught her how to speak publicly, express her thoughts, and connect with others. Hogan interviewed, among others, Andrea Silenzi ‘07, who hosted a program of radio plays from the 30s to 50s during her time at Wes. Silenzi is now an award-winning audio journalist in Los Angeles.

WESU’s Public Affairs Director and Contributor Lauren Tran-Muchowski ’25 jumped at the chance to get involved in Engage Radio, beginning this past summer. A host of her own music program since her first year at Wesleyan, Tran-Muchowski delved into stories showcasing highlights from WESU’s history. This included a piece about the Middletown Youth Project, which brought radio to students in Traverse Square, and a story about former Professor of American Studies J. Kehaulani Kauanui, whose show “Indigenous Politics: from Native New England and Beyond,” was syndicated on Pacifica radio stations.

Tran-Muchowski is currently producing a piece about Bishop Marichal Monts ‘85, who recently retired from his program on WESU after nearly 45 years. “It was a really big deal because his show brought Black gospel music to the WESU airwaves, which hadn’t been done before,” she said. His program, The Gospel Express, was one of the first Black gospel programs in Connecticut. A pioneer, Monts helped launch many other gospel radio deejays in the state.

Tran-Muchowski sees Engage Radio as an extension of the work that WESU has long been doing connecting people. “This is just one step in continuing to bridge the gap between Middletown members and The Wesleyan community,” she said. “It’s been really heartwarming knowing that the staff of WESU and the JCCP have been supportive in creating programs and places for people to feel heard.”

“I think in general working on the radio for students is really empowering and it connects them with the greater community,” said Michael. “That’s one of the takeaways that I hear a lot of students articulate, and alumni who may have graduated 20 years ago talk about the fact that this was the one place on campus where they were able to meet and work with folks from all walks of life and collectively in aggregate, provide a really big community service.”

Future Programming

In addition to Wesleyan people, events, and programs, Engage Radio plans to highlight projects in Middletown, such as Mosaics on Main. This multi-year initiative—which brings together Wesleyan faculty and students with Middletown students, artists, and residents—has the ambitious goal of creating and placing murals in the tunnel connecting downtown to the riverfront.

Looking ahead, Watson and Michael also plan to provide a platform for African American residents in Middletown to share oral histories during Black History Month. They will collect the histories with a dedicated phone line for residents to call in and record stories that will be edited down for broadcast. They would also like to invite residents to share reflections during Women’s History Month in March, and feature the work of CPE and other groups during National Reentry Month in April.

“That’s an example of how we will engage the community,” Watson said. “We are intentional about the folks that we invite. All of our guests are folks that are doing really good work here in Middletown.”

The Engage Radio team would also like to encourage Wesleyan academic departments to use the program to share students’ community-engaged learning experiences. Previous Engage Radio episodes are available at https://soundcloud.com/wesufm and the producers are also preparing to create a landing page on the JCCP website.

Note:  WESU has launched its Fall/Winter Pledge Drive with the goal of raising $30,000 by midnight on Dec. 31. Visit https://www.wesufm.org/pledge for options to support the station.