by Shawn Isaacs
When I was selected among all of the students in the Mass Communications Department in 2009 to help create The WOLF Internet Radio, I dreamt big. Can UWG’s radio station be what all other college radio stations are to their campus? Can it even live up to what the original student station was in the '70s and '80s? The answer was simply yes.
In spring 2010, 6 students in the first Radio Practicum class pushed out on-air programing, promoted the station, and launched a worldwide Internet only station. That fall it grew to 3 paid students, 8 practicum students and myself, 1 part-time casual laborer leading the helm. Chris York, Taylor Cyr, Jimmy Keane passionately created policy and procedure. We labor late nights with pizza and drank enough Monster to send most people into cardiac arrest. We conducted over 45 LIVE events and managed 11 on-air shows. But by far our greatest accomplishment was creating the W.I.T. Program. The students, or W.I.T.s, labor through a 7 week training course that gives them, regardless of experience, a chance to make it in the college radio world. It was more than we could have dreamed.
The WOLF keeps growing. Every April we celebrate our original launch with WOLFstock, a one night music festival of LIVE bands and DJs. We bring Monster energy and we party like hooligans for another year of success. In October, we band together with College Stations around the world, 700 this year alone, and stand in solidarity as the last bastion of creative and free radio. This year students partnered with Tanner Health Systems ReadER program. We are collecting children’s books that will be given out to every child that ends up at the hospital, hopefully curving illiteracy.
As of November 2013 The WOLF has 10 paid student staff and 15 practicum students. The W.I.T. program saw over 100 students place their signature to be at The WOLF. Additionally, I am now the official part-time staff member. Expansion is a limited word for what The WOLF has accomplished in 3 short years. It all comes back to the students that literally pour their blood, sweat, and tears into this station.
The WOLF beats by the hearts of the men and women that place a headphone on their heads, or call The WOLF a second home. Students from all walks of life. Different beliefs and personalities. Polar opposite students striving for greatness together. They seek immortalization of their own light. So many days I wake up not ready to face them, but my soul longs to see what each student will accomplish for The WOLF. Each day I see these students walk in the office and studios with complete confidence. It is the hunting ground of creativity, and the open plains of expression.
I saw it in myself in 2009. I saw it in the fall of 2010. I still see it today. The WOLF Internet Radio is not and should be seen as just a radio station. It is a community. We laugh, cry and yell at each other. We pick on each other as siblings on a long car ride. The growth of The WOLF is astonishing not because I dreamt. It is because students dream. I am honored to serve each semester with those students, for without them there would be nothing.
Shawn Isaacs is the operations manager for the WOLF Internet Radio.
