‘Aggie Parent and Family Podcast’ provides information to incoming students, families
Parents and family members of Utah State University students now have a new resource to assist with the transition into student life.
USU Student Orientation and Transition Services transition and parent program coordinator Isaiah Jones is the host of a new program titled the “Aggie Parent and Family Podcast.” According to Jones, the main goal of the podcast is to explain why students are at USU and how parents can offer support.
Jones said the idea to develop a podcast came from looking at how other institutions distribute information to parents. While many institutions use social media and emails, Jones said he began to notice the growing popularity of podcasts.
“There were some schools around the country who were also doing it and Utah State has really good resources,” Jones said. “We already had a lot of really good speakers lined up because they speak at student and parent orientation, so it just kind of made sense to try to get that content in the media world.”
According to Lisa Simmons, the director of USU Student Orientation and Transition Services, USU’s transition services has been looking into the best way to distribute information to parents that will best help their students, and the podcast helps fulfill this role.
“Parents probably for the most part are not going to get online and read the university’s mission statement,” Simmons said, “but they’ll listen to a podcast where someone talks about it in more approachable terms.”
The first episodes of the podcast were released in August. However, the podcast gained traction only recently. However, Simmons said this pattern of gaining listeners is typical for podcasts.
“It’s hard to advertise one podcast,” he said. “When you get the word out there, you want a few things for people to listen to, so they can get a flavor of what you are trying to do.”
Jones agreed and said developing the podcast in this way allowed him to gradually improve his podcasting abilities.
“The start is interesting because there is nobody following you, and you kind of feel like you are recording for a future,” Jones said. “We had to plant the seeds, so there was something to look back on, which now I’m glad we were putting stuff there.”
According to Jones, events such as the December student orientation or high school open houses have been a natural way to advertise and expand the number of listeners. So far, the podcast has over 300 regular listeners. Jones said the top downloaded episode is the episode on sexual assault prevention with USU Office of Equity prevention specialist, Emmalee Fishburn.
Episodes average around 20 minutes, and Jones said he plans on releasing two to three episodes per month.
“I think the thing to remember, too, about a podcast is that we’re not competing against Joe Rogan,” Jones said. “Realistically speaking, we want parents to listen to it. We don’t want 500 episodes in a semester.”
Listeners can find the podcast on the Podcasts application on iTunes, the Spotify app, or at https://www.usu.edu/parents/newsletter.