GatorCast Ep. 1: Welcome to Green River College's official podcast!
By College Relations, Media Services and the Office of the President, January 8, 2019
Episode Transcript:
[Speaker: Suzanne M. Johnson] Hello, and welcome to the first official GatorCast of Green River College. This is Suzanne Johnson speaking to you today. I'm the president at the college, and we are beginning podcasts for Green River College.
So people have been asking me, "Why a podcast? Why now?" Well, there are several reasons. One is it's another way for us to build another mode of communication. What we've been working so hard on together, as a college, students, staff, faculty alike, whoever you are listening today, we've been working on improving our communication and finding many different ways to be connected with each other, in terms of sharing information and building our sense of community. Podcasts seem to be a perfect option for us because, as I hear from so many, and my schedule is the same, our days are so full, and there are so many missed opportunities, in terms of meetings that you couldn't go to, or a special event, if you're a student, that you couldn't attend, because it was outside of your class time, and you're working off-campus in a couple of other jobs. And so this is a way for us to bring information to you at your convenience.
You can listen to this podcast, these podcasts, that are coming in the weeks to come, at the times you can. They will be available to you, and in fact, and I'll remind you later of this, this is your chance to subscribe to our cast, our GatorCast. Go to greenriver.edu/gatorcast and subscribe, and that way you'll get your notices and alerts, in terms of upcoming podcasts, and you can have that on your phone, or whatever device you use.
But this is a great, convenient way of connecting with all of you, whether you're student, staff, or faculty, and to bring people into the sound booth here with me that have information and experiences that we can learn from, students can learn from, staff and faculty can learn from. In fact, I've been asking people across campus for a number of months now about this podcast idea, and what they might wanna hear about.
As some of you know, every month I do Pizza with the President, and it's my chance to interview and talk with students, and they can tell me all kinds of things going on in their lives, and experiences here at the college. And I've been asking students for a number of months now, what kinds of things do they need to know more about? What are they feeling like they need more information to make good decisions for their todays and their tomorrows? And here are some things that students have shared with me, and if you're a student listening, and you're thinking of something that you don't hear on this list that you'd like us to touch on, in terms of podcasts in the future, again, go to greenriver.edu/gatorcast, and log in that idea. We'll be checking for suggestions, but here are some ideas that have already come to me from students.
Students are wondering about how to transfer to their next college, and how to plan for what institutions they should try to transfer to. So many of you out there are planning to transfer on to a four-year school. How do you do that? What are the right steps to take? How do you decide what schools to choose to transfer to?
A lot of students are wondering about how to figure out what they wanna study, whether it's here, 'cause you're an exploratory student, you're thinking about needing to pick a major when you go on to a four-year college. How do you decide what your career path might be? How do you plan your finances and budget? What are the options, in terms of financial aid? How are you able to complete an associate's degree if you're a Running Start student. I know I've got a lot of Running Start students out there listening to me right now, and that's been a question I have heard a lot. How do I complete my AA in the time I have 'til graduation from high school? A lot of students have asked whether or not we might be able to talk about what happens when you change a major. What happens if you change your area of interest? What does that mean? Does it cost more time? Does it cost more credits? And so on. A number of students were saying, "We need to hear more about life hacks. "We need some shortcuts. "We need to understand better about time management, "study skills, stress management, "organizational skills, how to maintain emotional health "and protect against depression. "What do we do with the stress we have as students? "Are there people out there that "we can learn from so we don't make the same mistakes?" Let's get after these life hacks.
I love this life hack idea, and in fact, we're gonna look into this. We're gonna bring people into this podcast booth, and we're gonna be interviewing either students who have found their way and have direction in their future, faculty and staff here who are leaders in their areas and successful in their jobs, and talk to them about some life hacks, get some advice from them, and find out what we can do to be even better at what we do each day.
For the staff and faculty listening out there, there are so many things that I'm asked when I'm around campus and having time to just have conversation with all of you in meetings, or just in the union, or we find each other on the walkways. So many questions and so many topics come up, and our schedules are really busy. I don't have to tell the staff and faculty here about how packed your days are, in terms of meetings, and class time for those instructors here, and other obligations that you have within your offices.
So this podcast will be another venue for all of us as a Green River College community to communicate out important initiatives, important priorities, important focus work, that's underway. We all know, right now we've been having big conversations around student completion, big conversations around student retention, and big conversations around where we're going in our future. So you've heard concepts like, and work around, strategic planning, strategic enrollment, and facilities management, and academic planning, and operational planning, and budget aligning with our priorities.
This is an opportunity for me, and for others, to be brought into the booth to talk about where we are in our work, why we're doing what we're doing, how we all fit into this big picture of a college success, and how we can create, together, a student-centered learning environment where we have even greater student success and greater student support.
So why podcasts? It's not so much, really, about the podcasts. It's about the people that come in to share their information. It's about the conversations we'll have in these podcasts that will help us bring another way of sharing information and building community. It's being able to bring attention to the college and individual people who work here, and whose actions make this college such a special place.
This is going to be a podcast that has things that students will wanna know, and things that staff and faculty want to hear. These podcasts are an effort to share what makes Green River such an extraordinary college. For those of you in the community that might not be a student at Green River, and you may not work here at the college, you're wondering, what's going on up at the Hill? What's going on down at the Downtown Center in Auburn, or at Kent Station, or out at Enumclaw? What's Green River College up to? This is your chance to learn, firsthand, what Green River College is, how we are committed to our students and their success, and to server our communities.
You will hear, firsthand, from students who are passionate about their studies, and their experience here at the college, and from staff and faculty who have devoted and committed their lives to this institution, what Green River College is really all about. And I'll tell you what. Subscribe. Go to greenriver.edu/gatorcast, and log in questions that you might have in the community, as community members, that you might have about the college. Give me podcast ideas. You wanna come and visit the college? Let me know. We'd be happy to have you up here and show you what this college is doing.
Since I've come to Green River, every day, I have discovered, is an adventure, and it's full of discoveries. Having these podcasts are an opportunity for me to share out all of the stories that I discover. I was told recently that, until I'm here for three years, and this is just a year and four months since I came to Green River, that for another year and a half, I'm still considered new, because it takes at least three years to get to know a college. I don't know whether that's true, because I've meet people on campus now that have worked here 10, 11, 12 years, and they tell me they're still learning new things about Green River.
Well, I hope that the podcast will help explore and expose even more positive, exciting things that you didn't know about this college, even if you've been here for a number of years. And again, the best part about these podcasts is you can listen to them when it's convenient to you.
So your call to action is to subscribe to our podcast, GatorCast. That's greenriver.edu/gatorcast.
G-A-T-O-R-C-A-S-T. Subscribe today. You will get your alerts and notice for our next podcast, and thanks, and have a great day.
