WXPN Partners With Penn’s Critical Writing Program to Give Students Hands-on Broadcast Writing Experience

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Created on Wednesday, 09 November 2005 15:32

Philadelphia, PA November 9, 2005 - This fall WXPN, the recognized leader in Triple A music and noncommercial, member-supported radio service of the University of Pennsylvania, is giving Penn students hands-on exposure to features writing for radio through a newly-created seminar in the University’s Critical Writing Program. “Arts and Culture Writing for Radio” teaches students how to produce stories for broadcast and includes instruction from the WXPN staff in classes held at the station’s state-of-the-art broadcast facility in University City.

The course is led by Roger LaMay, a 25-year broadcast veteran and general manager of WXPN. Meeting two times per week during the semester, students can tap into the vast experiences of the station’s program director, Bruce Warren, news director Bob Bumbera, Morning Show host Michaela Majoun, and producers Tracey Tanenbaum and Beth Warshaw among others. By the end of the course each student will have written and recorded his or her own story covering a local arts and culture event that will be broadcast on WXPN.

“This seminar provides our students the rare opportunity to learn first-hand about the important medium of radio,” said Valerie Ross, director of the Critical Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. “Students discover the amount of research, analysis, and writing that go into creating these seemingly effortless programs and perhaps learn by extension the degree to which writing occupies a central position in most fields they are likely to pursue.”

“As a public radio service, lifelong learning is an important part of our core values,” said LaMay. “Partnering with the Critical Writing Department to deliver this unique kind of educational experience fits perfectly with our mission to give back to the community and to Penn.”

WXPN 88.5 FM, the nationally recognized leader in Triple A radio and the premier guide for discovering new and significant artists in rock, blues, roots, and folk, is the non-commercial, member-supported radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. WXPN produces World Cafe®, public radio’s most popular program of popular music hosted by David Dye and syndicated by National Public Radio, and the Peabody Award winning Kids Corner hosted by Kathy O’Connell. WXPN serves the greater Philadelphia area at 88.5 FM, the Lehigh Valley at 104.9, Worton/Baltimore at 90.5 FM, Harrisburg at 88.1 FM, and the world via online streaming at www.xpn.org.