Uconn 360: The Uconn Podcast

This week, Professor Rachael Gabriel, director of the Neag School of Education's Reading and Language Arts Center, talks about what she's done to help students, parents, and teachers stay on top of reading education during the pandemic, and we learn about the fatal flaw in a plan to illegally change the grades of students. 

This week we sit down with alumna Lara Herscovitch '95 about balancing a career in social work with a career in writing and performing music; and we travel to storied Fort Trumbull to learn how UConn students there got the news out in the 1940s. 

This week, we hear from Coach Geno Auriemma; we meet Louis Goffinet '17, who launched a local charitable project in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; and we don mismatched Colonial uniforms to march alongside the mysterious UConn 49ers. 

This week, UConn Humanities Institute Fellow Siavash Samei '19 PhD tells us about his work on archaeological digs in what used to be Mesopotamia, we learn about a class so good students deliberately flunked so they could take it again, and we almost forget to brag about an award. 

With marches and protests in small towns and big cities across the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by Minneapolis police officers, we convened a panel of UConn faculty members affiliated with the Africana Studies Institute to help us understand the events unfolding across the nation and the world. Joining us are Melina Pappademos, associate professor of history and Africana Studies and director of the institute; Sean Salvant, associate professor of English and Africana Studies; Bede Agocha, assistant professor in residence of psychological sciences and Africana Studies; and David Embrick, associate professor of sociology and Africana Studies. 

This week, Professor Jeffrey Ogbar talks about the art and lasting influence of Little Richard, and we journey back to the 1940s, when a professor was on trial for suspected anti-American sympathies.

This week we bid a bittersweet farewell to Maxine Philavong, who graduated from UConn on May 9. We also talk with Prof. Nu-Ahn Tran about her work in archives that shed new light on the origins of the Vietnam War, and learn about a week that convulsed the university in 1970.

This week, we check in with students who are building a Minecraft graduation for UConn seniors and we learn about life on campus in 1905 from the perspective of an original member of the women's basketball team. 

There's still a lockdown, we're still recording from four socially distant locations, and we're still bringing the high heat: this week, Prof. Sarah McAnulty talks to us about adorable squids and the genesis of the Skype-a-Scientist initiative, and we visit Maxine's History Corner to learn what UConn students were forbidden to do during the 1918-1920 flu pandemic (hint: pouches were involved).

This week we come to you from four different towns across the great state of Connecticut, where the global pandemic has deposited us for the time being. We also hear from professor and landscape photographer Janet Pritchard about the Guggenheim Fellowship she won to document the Connecticut River watershed in photography, and we learn about the previous times when UConn was forced to cancel graduation ceremonies. Wash your hands and join us! 

This week, we speak with Prof. Lucy Gilson about the ways in which business and research go together; we hear about how the Guerrilla Girls changed the way we think about art; and we look back on a very patriotic series of fires on the Storrs campus. 

This week, we learn about a student's innovative initiative to promote composting at UConn; we get a glimpse at an exhibition of work by the underground comics artist R. Crumb; and we ask ourselves if they built the library without calculating the weight of books (answer: this did not happen). 

This week, we learn about the UConn Woodsmen, one of the most distinctive and interesting student groups on campus; Prof. Christopher Vials tells us why a new anthology on the history of anti-fascism is so timely; and we meet early radio pioneer Dan Noble, and ponder the call letters of UConn's first radio station.

This week, UConn philosopher Susan Schneider tells us about some of the possible benefits of artificial intelligence, as well as some potentially terrifying downsides; Associate Dean of Engineering Daniel Burkey explains how the school became a nationally-lauded exemplar of diverse student recruitment; and Tom tells us about two incidents from 1960 involving flags you probably shouldn't hang out your window. 

This week, we talk about UConn's participation in the first-ever Connecticut ice hockey festival; we learn about ways for UConn students to stay healthy; and we discover the significance of some skeletal remains found near a Revolutionary War battle site.

This week, Tom is MIA; Julie catches up with the ever-popular Regina Barreca, renowned humorist and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature; and Ken takes us inside the Boiling Point competition, part of UConn’s annual Culinary Olympics, scheduled this year for Tuesday, January 14.

This week, the gang takes stock of the year just about to pass, plays back some of our favorite stories, and discovers the antediluvian ancestor of UConn 360 itself. 

This week, we talk with men's basketball coach Dan Hurley about UConn hoops, Madison Square Garden, and growing up in a basketball family; Jane O'Donnell takes us on a tour of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology's Insect Collection; and travel back in time to a period when UConn was a ski destination (sort of). 

This week, we meet the UConn-trained historians behind the popular "American Girls" podcast; learn about research into the causes of child neglect; and discover the identity of the University's first-ever international student. 

This week, Julie meets members of the successful Chinese Students and Scholars Association UConn basketball squad; Ken sets the stage for the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine's visit to the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts; and Tom talks about the time UConn bought 13,000 ice cream bars to help stop an epidemic.