The latest offering from the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries won't be found in a book.
"Cut Pathways," a podcast drawing from over 50 hours of oral history interviews with 34 subjects, released its premiere episode on various streaming platforms June 29. It explores the first impressions of the city of Pittsburgh in the 1940s from important figures in CMU's history like Pamela McCorduck, Joe William Trotter Jr. and Vivian Hewitt. Two additional episodes featuring longer interviews will be released weekly, and additional seasons are in development.
Its hosts, Katherine Barbera and David Bernabo, CMU's oral history program director and production assistant, respectively, are using the podcast format to make these stories from former students, faculty and staff available to a broad audience.
"I'm a big fan of an underdog story, and it seems like every interview we have is someone trying to find their way through higher education, eventually finding success," said Bernabo, himself a 2005 graduate from the Tepper School of Business. "Podcasts are very inviting — and universal at this point. They're a really digestible vehicle to listen to these oral histories."
Barbera and Bernabo aren't alone. Across the university, a number of schools, departments, institutes, programs, researchers, professors and students are making podcasts about their areas of expertise.
Kathy M. Newman, an associate professor of English, decided to try an alternative approach to the traditional term paper in her class "Topics in Literature: Watching HBO's Watchmen" in the spring semester of 2021. For their final project, Newman's students produced an eleven episode podcast series, "Tartans Watch the Watchmen."