New CUR Chem Podcast
Two years ago, the Chemistry Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research decided to actively engage a group of councilors focused on diversity and inclusion. The main objective is to support and promote faculty development around these important issues. Eight of us, representing universities and colleges nationwide, formed a working group to brainstorm ideas and the Chem4REAL podcast was born.
The Story Behind the Podcast
It took some time for us to converge on the podcasting idea and since none of us had podcasting experience, we certainly were starting from scratch. Although we all agreed that this was a good idea, it was difficult to achieve enough momentum to get us to our launch date of Saturday, August 15, 2020. We are excited to have reached this juncture.
Along the way we met monthly during the school year and weekly during summer 2020. We chose a podcast name, Chem4REAL: Research Engages All Learners, and wrote a description of our goal.
If you’re interested in engaging undergraduate students in research in the classroom, lab or community, then Chem4REAL is for you. Together, we will discuss issues around research equity, sustainability, logistics, advocacy, proposal or publication writing, and much more. This podcast is hosted by faculty representatives of the chemistry division in the Council on Undergraduate Research whose mission is to support and promote high-quality undergraduate faculty-student collaborative research and scholarship.
“If you’re interested in engaging undergraduate students in research in the classroom, lab or community, then Chem4REAL is for you.”
CUR Chem podcast creators
We learned about RSS feeds and audio editing software. We agreed on the general format of episodes and chose freely available music to use during our introduction and exit clips. We found a free and all-encompassing podcasting site (anchor.fm) to host our efforts. Each of us recorded our common introductory text and exit text. A music track was added… but at that point we were stalled. It wasn’t a lack of ideas for podcast episodes, rather the activation energy of organizing and recording a full episode.
And then the pandemic of Spring 2020 hit.
It became clear that if Chem4REAL was going to move forward, it would be through recorded video, similar to our pivot to remote learning. To maintain the chemical reaction metaphor, the pandemic was our transition state and all we had to do was start recording our discussions.
The First Episode
Our first episode is exactly that, seven experienced faculty from across the nation and representing a broad cross section of institution types, came together to discuss how we and our colleagues handled remote labs in Spring 2020 and how we think those activities continue to support undergraduate research. Chem4REAL launches officially on August 15th. If you are interested in listening to the first full episode, you can directly link to it here! You can find an audio transcript of the first episode here: Chem4REAL Podcast Transcript – Episode 1 You can explore all of our episodes at the bottom of this post or you can search for the Chem4REAL podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
We have some great episodes lined up for the academic year, including interviews with Silvia Ronco (current CUR President) and numerous faculty promoting and facilitating diverse undergraduate research experiences. Our current schedule releases episodes approximately monthly. Be sure to subscribe and leave a rating as it helps others to find us. As always, you can contact us at curchemistrydivision@gmail.com. We hope to hear your thoughts!
The Chem4REAL podcast was launched by Bridget Gourley, Catherine Chan, Hector Palencia, Rob Bachman, Anna Cavinato, Toni Barstis, Greg Ferrence and Karen Almeida.
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