Maggie Lo ‘23
A podcast series called EA Unlocked was lauched this year to broadcast the inner workings of EA in a new and interesting way. The series has taken off within the EA community, and as of February 25, 2020, 1,541 people have listened to the podcasts in total, about 110 listeners per episode. These can be found on the Episcopal website, as well as on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.
Locke started this podcast to give others the chance to view EA through his admiring eyes. He wanted a way to share aspects of EA that are important yet not talked about often. He says, “I think we’ve worked really hard to get our social media working and our news stories, our publications, and our website. But some stories have a depth to them that you can’t quite capture in a headline.”
He also states, “[the podcast series] was one of those ideas where we just tried it to see if anyone liked it.” Locke began by brainstorming a list of topics and realized that there was a lot of information that he wanted to share with the EA community.
In the beginning of the process of making a podcast, Locke and others think of ideas and ask other members of the community what they would like to hear about. Once a topic is decided upon, the chosen subject of the podcast is asked to prepare answers to a list of questions. Then, Locke and Courtney Brinkerhoff-Rau, Assistant Director of Communications, set up the equipment for recording in Locke’s conference room.
Although the speaker is asked to prepare answers to questions, Locke expresses that “we try to just make it a nice conversation. I think if we talk in a way that’s genuine, people will find that interesting […] We’re connecting to the hard work that people do here and just trying to share it with other people.”
Charles Bryant, Upper School history teacher and the subject of the Bringing History to Life episode, says, “[The process] was very well organized. They gave me a series of questions, and I knew a general sense of what my answers were going to be […] We did it in one take. It came off really polished because of all the preparatory work.”
Locke gives the same concluding question to each interviewee, asking, “What’s one thing that you love about EA that we don’t talk enough about around here?”
He does this to achieve his original goal of sharing the aspects of EA that people might not know about. “I think if we do that over time,” says Locke, “the great diversity of people we have working here will see different things about our school that we like.”
Each podcast is about eight to twelve minutes and contains “natural sound,” which can be clips from a classroom or kids talking. Locke says, “[Brinkerhoff-Rau] produces it in a way that sounds more interesting than someone just talking the whole time.” According to Locke, in the future, the team is “working on a student designing some music for the podcasts.”
As of February 20, the podcasts consist of Junto Club and the History of Debate at EA, Inside the White House with Bob Darling on 9/11, Lower School Morning Meeting, Domino Club, Studying the Classics at EA, EA/Haverford/AIS Weekend (the most popular episode with 239 listeners), Robotics at EA, EA’s Lilley Fellowship Program, Celebrating the Holidays at EA, Bringing U.S. History to Life, EA’s New Science Curriculum, and the most recent, Global Online Academy.
The subject of the Global Online Academy podcast is Dr. Adam Lavallee, Upper School teacher and GOA site director, who talks with Locke on GOA and its goals. Lavallee also explains how students can sign up for these programs, as well as where to find more information. Within the podcast, Cameron Buonocore ‘20, Jimmy Bruder ‘21, and Avery Valerio ‘22 share their positive experiences with the program. The podcast has even benefitted students interested in GOA. Clare Collins ‘23 expresses, “I listened to the GOA one because I’m interested in taking a course, and it was really informative.”
The Bringing U.S. History to Life podcast with Bryant explains the innovative teaching methods that the history department is trying to integrate into their syllabi, including an Escape-the-Room game. Additionally, in EA’s Lilley Fellowship Program, Locke discusses the opportunity with Max Kelly, Upper School history teacher and Lilley Fellowship director, and Kat Harrar ‘21, a Lilley Fellow. Kelly explains how the Lilley Fellowship works as well as the process of becoming a Lilley Fellow, and Harrar shares her experience with the program and the results and future of her project.
There will be at least a dozen more pre-recorded podcasts coming out in the near future, and one of these includes a piece on the history of EA, with Noble Brigham ‘20 as the subject. Dr. Locke concludes, “They’ve caught on enough that we will keep doing them. We have plenty of ideas, so I think next year we will have a season two.” A few other ideas are behind-the-scenes of snow day decisions, the role of a Form Dean, EA’s co-ed journey, and the Lower School technology curriculum.