By Lenan Sophia Choto
Another year, another round of episodes of CHID’s Convos in the Office. Started back in 2021, our podcast series has evolved into a free-form conversation exploring the minds of our talented students, staff, and faculty.
Although kickstarting the project and its direction has been a journey (given the uncertainties we face during the latter half of the 2021-22 school year), we came back this year with energy, enthusiasm, and better production (thanks for allowing me to produce music for the pod).
Our first episode back from summer break featured the newest member to the department: CHID administrator Marthadina Russell! To start the quarter light, we discussed the beauties of Autumn, the exciting darkness of the Halloween season, as well as our love for flowers.
Following our premiere, CHID instructor AM Weatherford stopped by to talk about queerness in poetics, though not before sharing our queer coming-out. Despite the emotional and heavy subject matter, we managed to lighten the room with our love of poetry and its usefulness to marginalized groups via the use of bleak writing.
As the year continued to progress, CHID students were eager to have their voices heard and displayed within the 30-minute audio media format.
Almost-graduate Rand Mattis stopped by to talk about their thesis regarding knowledge production within academic settings, which included topics like accessibility and diversity. On a different note, 4th year CHID student Tisbe Rinehart enthusiastically hopped on the mic to talk about mental health, gender dynamics, and the wilderness.
We only have one quarter left, and although time is sparse, we’re grateful for those who spent time in the office to parse topics that are important to them. We hope to have more episodes before the year ends, and continue to innovate community building via multimedia practice.