Continuing Studies: Higher Ed Podcasting

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: And I
can recall students just leaning

in with a smile on their face,
really getting engaged with

the media and appreciating it.

And even the nature of how that, how that
room mic unfolded, it reminds me of the

campfire in the tribal village, right?

This idea that we've been
communicating for millennia.

You, you cannot not communicate,
and it is, it is a foundational

understanding that we can't escape that.

And so we're always gonna be drawn
to communication, and podcasting

is this, is this digital age
tool that is igniting interest.

Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing
Studies, a podcast for higher

education podcasters who want to
learn, connect, and get inspired.

I'm Neil McPhedran, founder
of HigherEdPods.com and

Podium Podcast Company.

Jennifer Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee,
founder of JPod Creations.

Podcasting is broadcasting.

If you're podcasting in
higher ed, you're not alone.

There is a fast-growing
community out there, and we're

here to help you tap into it.

Also, we'd love to hear from you, so
email us your ideas, or if you wanna

be on the show or know somebody we
should be interviewing, please email us.

All the details are in the show notes.

Neil McPhedran: We actually read our
emails, so you know, let's hear from you.

Comments, even if you have
a negative comment for me.

I know you won't have any
negative comments for Jen,

but even if you have- What?

… a negative comment for me,
I wanna hear about it, so.

There'd be no

Jennifer Lee: negative
comments for you either.

Neil McPhedran: No, no, there we go.

So today we are chatting with Garrett
Castleberry, who is associate professor

and serves as program director of
Media Production and Communications at

the Mid-America Christian University,
and he is also co-chair of the

School Humanities Social Sciences.

A few more things cool about Garrett,
he was one of our inaugural finalists,

for the PodCon Awards, which was
awesome, and he is creator and host

of the podcast, because, you know,
we interview podcasters here, of

the Special Topics in Media podcast.

He says, "Through innovative
teaching, multimedia storytelling, and

podcast-driven classroom engagement,"
Garrett has helped position podcasting as

both an educational tool and a platform
for student and faculty voices, which we

get into and we actually ask him about.

Jennifer Lee: Yeah.

Well, I was just excited to interview
him because he wrote us this really nice

note before Higher Ed PodCon because
he does listen to Continuing Studies,

which we love hearing that you do- Yes

listen.

So it was really cool.

And so it was great to finally,
meet him and then get him on here

onto the Continuing Studies podcast.

So let's, hear what Garrett has to say.

Neil McPhedran: Get into it.

Garrett, so great to have you
here on Continuing Studies.

Thanks for joining us.

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.:
Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me on.

It's exciting to connect with
increasingly familiar faces and voices.

Neil McPhedran: We chatted a few days ago,
and but we met at, PodCon actually- Yeah

… which was, which was, which was fantastic.

And, and you've been doing this
podcasting thing on a number of fronts.

We're gonna obviously dig into that today.

But you said you had this idea and
this, all this work you've been doing

in podcasting for a while, and almost
in a bubble, I think is what you said.

And then you- That's right … got
to PodCon and you found this whole

group of people that were on a similar
mission What did that change for you?

Did you go back to campus and you were
just like reinvigorated that you were

on the right path here with podcasting?

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: Sometimes
you attend a conference and it's,

you're, you're fulfilling a duty, right?

And it's this combination of scholarly
investment and maybe there's a little

overlap with some service work, right?

You have, you have certain agendas
you go to present and so on, and

network and engage with people.

And that can be, it, it changes from
conference to conference what that

experience looks and feels like.

And I've, I feel like I've, I've
experienced the full gambit of not

connecting well with people or, simply
fulfilling my duty and moving on,

or having excellent, social time and
engagement with others, or having high

quality contributions in the form of
presentations and being able to be a part

of business meetings and things like that.

This was one of the peak experiences,
and what truly, blew me away was the

fact that I knew no one going in.

That it, it was an entirely
fresh and new experience.

But from the get-go, the arrangement,
all of the, the ordination, everything

was, was well put together, but
equipped because the people were

there with purpose and passion.

And it was, it was oozing
out of every panel and every

keynote and every experience.

I did return invigorated, and I've even
immediately gone back into the classroom.

Here we are, the start of a new semester,
and the ideas and conversations and

information I was getting fed, at
the, at the conference, it continues

to, it's pouring out onto my
whiteboards, live with the groups.

I'm, you know, I'm, I'm able to
kind of transfer and transmit, you

know, data and information and ideas
that I was hearing about there.

And I can't, that is, that doesn't
happen as often So it's a great movement

going on with the Higher Ed PodCon.

Jennifer Lee: Oh, it's like a good review.

We need to cut that up and post it-
Right … for the next Higher Ed PodCon.

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: Well, I
would add to that, I didn't know about

this conference until I was sampling
the Continuing Studies podcast.

Neil McPhedran: You've positioned
podcasting as two things at once,

both an educational tool as well as a
platform for student and faculty voices.

Which one of those has
been harder to build?

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: It is
definitely a marathon, not a sprint,

working to become more equipped
and competent in podcasting.

This was ki- somewhat born
out of a, a mixed origin.

I was trying to even recall before
our conversation, what was the,

what was the igniting point?

I was a graduate student, but I
was also serving as director of

forensics, so director of speech and
debate at a university I was, was

at, and I would have to commute in.

I didn't live in that college town.

And one of the things I enjoyed, that
kind of escapism, was what could, what

could close the minutes, what could
make time speed up or become more

enjoyable in that commuter lifestyle.

I got very hooked on, satellite
radio programming and, but then my

scholarly mind just wouldn't turn off.

Like, so I wasn't approaching the
media from a leisurely perspective.

And I ended up all of those distant
ethnographic observations, became, became

the groundwork for some scholarship,
and I got very invested in that.

And at the same time, like anything
that, that can be adapted and

adopted for societal use, the costs
were coming down on equipment.

And so I'd made some early
investments myself just dabbling

in using it as a teaching tool.

And every so often, a project that
we would throw in, or we would say,

"We want folks working on scripts,
and then we're gonna produce these

into some audio works at the end."

And I have this memory of a really … I,
I w- I won't list any names of brands

or anything like that, but one of the
lesser expensive, lesser quality mics that

would just sit in the middle of a table.

And I can recall students just
leaning in with a smile on their

face, really getting engaged with
the media and appreciating it.

And even the nature of how that, how that
room mic unfolded, it reminds me of the

campfire in the tribal village, right?

This idea that we've been
communicating for millennia.

So I come from the field of communication
studies, and one of our most famous

quotes or paraphrases that gets
repeated over and over again is

that y- you cannot not communicate.

And it is, it is a foundational
understanding that we can't escape that.

And so we're always gonna be drawn
to communication, and podcasting

is this, is this digital age
tool that is igniting interest.

And it's … I think one of the best
parts about it is it flows from high

economic usage to low economic usage.

It can be hobbyist, but it can also
be a dynamic professional tool, and

that's where we began to see the
changes happening in real time, and

we wanted to do more and more with it.

And in order to do more and more
with it, and in, in order to

introduce it into curriculum, I
needed to know a lot more about it.

I needed to be a better
practitioner with it.

And so that's where we birthed the
lecture podcast, or Lecturecast, as I

often call it, as a tool to teach with,
but then as a tool to train myself to

be better so that I could be a better
practitioner of it in the classroom.

I loved the classical setting of, of,
of like the distinguished professor

lecturing on end, like just dispensing
wisdom, the village sage, and we just

soak it up and they're entertaining.

All, I loved it.

I loved it.

I love that classroom model.

Students today do not have time for that.

They don't, they don't
have attention spans.

And, and I say that with, with
grace and, and understanding that

it's not just a student issue.

Like it's, you know, the diminishing
attention spans is related to the

nature of change in, in how we're
using media and how media is using us.

And as a result, this brings new problems.

And one of my solutions that I
felt like this is an answer to

a problem right in front of us.

This actually worked, first it worked as a
solution for online students, and then it

became a solution for on-ground students.

Online students, the, the problem
is we've, the classes are moving

too fast, and we don't have a
physical classroom we're meeting in.

How can they have some of that experience
of being able to engage with, hear

content being engaged in meaningful ways?

But then in the physical classroom, we
have the reverse problem of everyone's

impatiently ready to check out How do we
still be truthful to the mission and the

mindset and the values of traditional
education, but then meet them in the

middle and say, We're gonna give it to
you in a supplemental way, and we're

gonna give it to you in an asynchronous
way so that you-- You know what?

If you wanna go on a jog and listen
to it, if you wanna iron your

clothes, do your laundry, and just
have it on, take it in like that.

Use it as a commuter tool."
We have students that, that

drive in for evening classes.

Use the, use the Lecturecast
to fill the time, right?

There's a, there's a book by Ethan,
Ethan Tussy, The Procrastination

Economy, and it's the big business of
downtime, I think is the subtitle of it.

Something to that effect.

And we use it in one of our classes.

And this idea of learning how to
meaningfully fill the minutes in between

things, not to exhaust yourself, not
to exploit yourself and your time.

We all need decompression time.

But to, but to fulfill some
needs that we don't have enough

time in our day sometimes.

And that's what we want this tool to be.

We find that, that podcasting was a
solution to regaining or reclaiming

something lost in, in the decline of
the formal lecture in the classroom.

Jennifer Lee: It's so funny.

I'm gonna date myself right now, when
I went to university, obviously there

was no podcasting or anything like that.

Mm. And we would take recorders and,
like, take the-- Not on your phone, like

take an actual physical recorder- and sit
there and record the lectures and listen

back to them while I was doing laundry or
other things in the house, but now I was

like, oh, people have podcasts they can
listen back to while they're doing it.

And that's why I think too, other
students have probably way more

advantages than, than we did-

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: They do.

They do.

Jennifer Lee: to learn the material.

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: grad
school f- in some, in, in especially

in R1 universities can be that,
that gauntlet, that proving ground.

And I would record, I didn't record all
of the faculty, but I would just, I was

like, "I never wanna forget these things.

These are so great." But I was
also panic-stricken about oral

comprehensive exams to come someday.

I would kind of jog or run and, and
listen back to… I'm holding the recorder

like it's an MP3 player or, you know,
a smartphone with wired earphones in.

You know, that's, that's
what point in time it was.

Jennifer Lee: Lecturecast is such
a cool concept because I think when

people think about podcasting, a
lot of people just assume that it's

gonna be an entertainment show.

But people don't realize that podcasting,
it can be used as a tool in many

different things, either in businesses
internally to onboard new employees,

do their messages across a board in
a private format, or for education.

There is so much wealth
to it that you can use.

Like you're using it as a
Lecturecast, and I love that.

So when the students first, took
a listen to your lecturecast.

Did you get any great feedback from it?

I'm gonna assume yes,
because you kept it going.

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: So, one
of the things that happened, we became

committed to, to consistently find the
right kinds of classes and the right kinds

of endpoints to, to start this thing off.

And we have a course called
Special Topics in Media Studies.

And if you've ever spent much time in
higher ed and paid close attention, you

know that any given discipline, especially
in the humanities, but it could be in

other fields, the special topics course
is the one that can be reinvented without

sending through the very difficult
curriculum change mechanisms of, of

the institution of higher ed, right?

That sometimes there's a lot
of procedure that can get in

the way of, of new courses.

But special topics gives you broad range.

It can be reinvented every time.

And that's important to us because
part of our mission statement, which

we buy into heavily in our program, we
have a great alignment with our mission

to create, collaborate, and innovate
to solve local and global problems.

And we're able to use multimedia
production tools and assignments

and projects to do that.

If you're starting anything new and you
know there's some difficulty to overcome

Find the point of entry that excites you.

And I, while coming from communication
studies, most of my graduate

work was pointed toward mass
communication in different fields.

Wrote my master's thesis on graphic
novel narratives in post-9/11 age.

I wrote my PhD, dissertation on
television, on the changing nature

of content in the, cable TV drama.

And so I, I was fulfilling that
intersection of scholarly interest, of

teaching interest, and, and identity
calling, and we were able to, fuse it into

an introduction to film studies course.

And we would, at first, we would just drop
MP3s into, we would embed them into our

closed platform that the students would
be logged into where they get information.

We were slowed down by the onset of COVID
and the way it sort of froze budgets

and, and kind of made everyone take a
step back or at least, you know, pump

the brakes on different initiatives.

And then finally, once we were regaining
some strength and dexterity coming out of

that period, we didn't stop podcasting,
by the way, but we were archiving many

seasons along the way until we had a
healthy, you know, bushel ready to go.

So fall of 2022, we went live with it.

We had a distribution network
set up by that point, a plan in

which we would keep it going, and
we've sustained it ever since.

it w- it was running for the majority
of this time, as a weekly installment

and, and then we've, we've been able to
scale it back to about twice a month.

But that's simply because there's so,
so many exciting things going on, and

we're working on the launch of, of a
broader network of campus-related pods.

And so, you know, that labor gets
divided, but it gets divided in the,

along the lines of multiplicity, right?

We're, we're, we're kind of buying
into that concept of multipliers.

We're wanting to take an idea and spin
it into the next idea and, and keep

the, momentum going on this movement.

Neil McPhedran: When we chatted,
you also mentioned that you've got

a formula at univer- at university,
which is how do you do more with less?

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: Yes.

Neil McPhedran: And so as part of,
rebuilding your online work that you've

been doing, you had mentioned that you
put a lot of academic rigor back into it,

but you were finding there was a deficit
in the professional development side.

How did podcasting turn out to be
part of that answer of putting the

professional development back in?

I don't think we think about
podcasting that way sometimes.

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: Yeah.

When I was recruited to this university,
I was recruited to help, help infuse

a fresh vision into their program.

They were at a crossroads with it.

They were, they were, they were on the
verge of making some tough choices,

and, and I'm, I'm speaking a code,
a language that would be familiar

to some folks in higher ed, right?

We've gone through some ups and
downs in the last decade plus,

and they needed, they need the
kind of vision that could work.

And, and so I came in with a plan for
them to, to build out their degree.

They had a very narrow focus on
public relations, and I said,

"This has strengths, but it has a
lot of visible challenges to it."

And among those is that it's too
narrow, that you can do a lot more.

And we needed to find the ways to do more.

But at the same time, I'm on a campus
and I have a unique position where

I work both in the world of online
higher ed and, and in the physical

classroom, on a physical campus.

And so those are dueling identities.

Those are dueling student demographics,
and it takes different approaches.

And so, one of the first things we
had to do was rebuild and restructure

their online degree program.

And this is different because
it's an accelerated program.

You're taking classes that run
a lot quicker, and students are

taking one course at a time.

And what does it mean to both teach
media and then eventually media

production curriculum to students who
are in another state or in a rural

area, or have a lack of resources,
or don't have access to campus?

How do we, how do we treat them like
an equal in the, in the eyes of what it

means to be a student in the 21st century?

And tools like podcasting
were the difference maker.

Like they were the, they
were the solvency to this.

These were becoming tools that
they could, grab, and regardless

of quality, the experience matters.

So once again, I come from the
speech and debate background as

a practitioner, and I would coach
and mentor young communicators.

And there is, there is something to the
repetition of form that helps us improve.

We gain confidence and we gain competence.

And so regardless of whether they could
only afford a small mic, use the mic on

their laptop, be able to just draw from
their, you know, smartphone if they had

one, we could reach students in another
kind of way because we were ultimately

trying to craft a remarkable experience
for them, and that was a big point

of buy-in across our online college.

So it started with the online college,
but then we introduced it on ground.

And what we did a couple years later was
we took a group of se- mostly seniors,

but some were transferring too, and we
were in a spring semester, and we had

them put together a persuasive argument
for why the university should invest in

a multimedia studio for the students.

We had a brand new president incoming
at the time, and he was big on listening

to ideas, like wanting to prove that,
demonstrate his investment in others.

And as their ideas that was, they
were gonna culminate in their final

project for class came together, I felt
and saw the strength of the argument

because it was a persuasion class.

And I believed in it enough.

I invited the president in to sit in
on their final presentation for class.

And as we got closer and closer and
they, and, and, and they rehearsed

it and they were going over
things, I felt we needed witnesses.

So I invited some other admin,
some, some advocates of our

program, some other faculty.

We filled that room.

He sat the closest of anyone.

He was supposed to only have
30 minutes on his calendar.

He gave us an hour.

He, he was smiling ear to ear by the end
of this thing, and he had… He said,

"I have two comments." When it ended
and they were receiving their applause.

He had, "One, great job.

I, I, I would love to
hire every one of you.

This was-- You all pulled this
off so masterfully." And he

said, "Two, let's do this.

Let's do this." And they took a
construction crew that was working

across campus moved them to the basement
of the building I'm in, and that's

where we now have the McHugh Studio,
and we teach podcasting out of it.

We teach a multimedia
storytelling out of it.

But we have to fight to get that time
reserved for us because it's become one of

the most popular destinations on campus.

Our marketing team is in there.

we, we have visitors all the time.

It's a, it's a high point of campus tours.

So it's a transformational space that
is doing intentional work, that doesn't

just work with our program, but it's
doing missional work for the university.

Neil McPhedran: Now that you've been
doing it and you've been kind of leading

the charge for your school on, on your,
on your campus, but what has podcasting

opened up for your colleagues and faculty?

What have you kind of observed?

The, you know, the ones who weren't
podcasters and they weren't even

looking for it, and you've sort
of brought it to the forefront at

your, at your institution, sort of.

What, what have you seen
amongst your colleagues?

Garret Castleberry, Ph.D.: Sometimes
one of the hardest things is to get

someone else excited about something that
you have a passion for, and that's…

You can't win all of those battles.

And we, we experience that in the
classroom every single day, right?

I think one of the, one of the great
enigmas of the communication studies

discipline is that it is a difficult
sell sometimes in advising meetings.

Parents come in and they want security in
what a degree can mean for their students.

And we know within the field all the,
ways in which it diversifies skill sets,

that it can set you up for what I call
innumerable professional opportunities.

But the problem is that it
doesn't have that concrete title

that suggests nursing Education.

Right, and so on.

And, and pushing you in
a, in a exact direction.

And that's, that's frightful for some,
but that's empowering for others.

Well, podcasting can be a similar thing.

Podcasting is one of many arms in which
we're trying to unlock their potential.

I'm teaching an Introduction
to Podcast course right now.

It's a every other year rotation.

And then we've been working on
rewriting our Intro to Podcasting

accelerated course this summer.

And I would say the experiences
of attending Higher Ed PodCon and

getting to hear about accelerated
shifts in the medium have positively

impacted how we're taking curriculum.

Like, we have adjusted simply based on
what I was hearing in those sessions.

We're excited about using
it in, in a number of ways.

A takeaway that I give students in this
class, for example, is you don't have to

think of this as you're either going into
this or not going into this for a job.

But we want you to see it as a skill set
that helps level you up and get you ready

to help solve problems, whatever direction
you're taking your future career, right?

And it could be public sector,
private sector, nonprofit.

It could be missional.

It could be, it could be in higher ed.

It … We don't know, but these are tools,
and the c- communication's not gonna

change, and technology's not going away.

And these, and this is a, this is
a mass medium that, that exists

where these two lanes converge, and
that's something to be excited about

Jennifer Lee: Perfect way to wrap
up because communication skills are

something that you can use always.

They're probably the most valuable
skill you have in your toolkit when

you leave university, regardless if
you're gonna go on to do a podcast.

But we all need to communicate, so thank
you so much, Garrett, for coming on.

Neil McPhedran: Great
to have you, Garrett.

Okay, Jenn, that was great.

Garrett had so much to share there.

Like, and it's amazing how many different
ways he's using podcasting in his teaching

with students, teaching podcasting, but
also as a tool with the Lecturecast.

Super interesting, actually.

I appreciated that he talked about how
early days when he was thinking about

getting into podcasting, he started
podcasting, forcing himself to podcast

so he could learn it as he was trying to
work on teaching it at the same time, and

I think that's true for all of us, right?

Like, we started this podcast,
but I've gotten better at this and

I've learned along the way, but I,
I appreciated how Garrett sort of

opened up about that, about how he
had to start doing it himself before

he could actually start teaching it.

Jennifer Lee: Love the fact that he
listened to himself, and that's- Yeah

another thing that people don't realize.

You do get better.

I know a lot of people hate listening
to themselves, but it's something that

I did in radio as well, is like you
really have to listen back because it's

the only way you're gonna understand it.

It was interesting, too, that he
said not only to improve, but also

to understand the information.

So- Right … you know, all these tools
that people were doing back in the day

with recorders and things, we're still
doing it, but now we have easier forms,

easier ways of recording, like podcasting.

So a lot of great wisdom in that episode.

Neil McPhedran: Yeah, good stuff, Jenn.

Totally agree.

So with that, why don't you read us out?

Jennifer Lee: Thank you for tuning
into the Continuing Studies Podcast, a

podcast for higher education podcasters.

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