Radio’s not Dead, It Moved to College!

On the third floor of Loyola’s Baumhart hall, the peaceful hum of a song plays behind the closed doors of the WLUW studio. The glow of the soundboard lights up the studio as the Radio DJ program cues up another song. There are a few posters, doodles from DJs, and past radio awards perched high up on the walls, creating an atmosphere unlike anything else Loyola has to offer. Audrey Strand checks the time logs and song lineups before she finishes up the daily email check in her office and finishes up by restocking the CD bin outside the studio, making sure to take a few good picks home for her roommates.  

Audrey may be a political science major, but her influence extends beyond the lecture halls. She might blend into the rush of students heading to class on campus, but that changed once she headeddowntown for the day. As WLUW’s program director, she orchestrates the station’s heartbeat—training new DJ’s, managing schedules, and keeping the station breathing. Her role is integral to maintaining the flow of the station; that everything runs smoothly, even when the workload may get too hectic to manage. As fellow WLUW staff member and the station’s studio engineer Aiden Heilman puts it, “She always remembered all the things that I forget that we have to do.” 

Like most DJs, Audrey first stepped into the WLUW as a nervous freshman—intimidated by the cool posters plastered on the walls, the shelves of vinyl, and radio equipment that looked closer to rocket-ship controls than anything she’d ever touched. Her hands were sweaty, her notes were scribbled onto sticky pads, and the studio felt like a sacred space where admission was granted only to people with impossibly niche music taste and a perfectly curated sense of cool. 

But it’s not that at all. 

What she’d discovered, and what she now shares with the next wave of DJs, is how human, welcoming, and honestly fun college radio really is. One of the most important roles as a program director is training new DJs, something Audrey finds herself doing often. As Audrey puts it, “Training new DJs is like watching someone open a gift you gave them,” and being in the studio, behind the board feels, “surreal- hearing yourself through a microphone for the first time.” The intimidation melts away, replaced by connection, creativity, and the thrill of building something together. The goal of the radio station is to give students a platform to share their voice, to say what they want to say.  

Audrey’s story echoes that of the countless students who find their footing in the studio. But what grounds the station even more deeply is the presence of its community DJs. For many Loyola Chicago students and alumni alike, the studio serves as a place of expression; where for an hour or two, they can go on-air for all of Chicago to tune in and listen. “Some of our community DJs have been here for decades. They’re like veterans of the Chicago music scene.” In a city that’s so rich with history, WLUW serves as a space where DJs can contribute, but gain knowledge as well. “Students learn so much from the community DJs-- they’re living in Chicago music history.” 

For Audrey, WLUW didn’t just open the door to a studio—it opened the door to the entire city. Some of her most vivid college memories exist not in classrooms, but in the spaces, she was able to access through the station: backstage rooms, press pits, crowded venues pulsing with unfamiliar bands. Earlier this year, she found herself at Riot Fest, credentialed and camera-ready, standing close enough to the stage to see the drummer of Hole casually chatting nearby. “I remember thinking, why am I here? How did I get to be in this moment?” she says, laughing. “It was surreal.” 

The station gave her a front-row seat to the Chicago music scene—literally. She’s photographed artists, attended local shows she never would’ve otherwise, and learned to navigate the world of independent music from the inside out. These weren’t just fun perks; they were formative experiences, moments that showed her how music could be the thread that wove a community together. She explains how it made the city feel smaller and more intimate, how she felt more connected to something that mattered.  

For many students, wondering what the next steps after college can be a daunting thought. For Audrey, WLUW has shown that handling press passes, communicating with artists, and stepping into this leadership role can open up opportunities to show that she could do bigger things outside of the small corner of that the WLUW studio exists in.  

Beyond managing schedules and training new DJs, one of the most constant—and overlooked—parts of Audrey’s job are sorting through the steady flood of emails that lands in the WLUW inbox every week. “It’s a lot of artists, promoters, small labels, people you’ve never heard of,” she explains. “But that’s kind of the point.” She combs through submissions, Bandcamp links, and scans press releases to find the tracks that will end up in WLUW’s rotation playlist, the curated mix of new music that plays during automated hours or serves as inspiration for DJs crafting their shows. It’s a quiet but critical task; it’s how she finds the voices wroth amplifying.  

Spotlighting smaller artists is especially important in WLUW, where the mission extends far beyond trending charts or algorithm-approved hits. In the wake of streaming platforms that seem to curatemedia for any mood we could possibly wish to achieve, radio seems to fall flat in the college sphere. This is because every possible mood or atmosphere is compiled into a pre-made playlist that offers little exposure to smaller artists, or at the very least, artists listeners may be personally new to. The station thrives on the underheard, the overlooked, the artists who don’t have machinery of a major label behind them. “We want to keep things independent,” Audrey says. “Anyone can listen to Spotify and get whatever the algorithm spits out. We’re trying to show people what exists outside that bubble.”  

For many emerging musicians, music getting added isn’t just exposure—it’s a lifeline. It’s a chance to be discovered by listeners who are actively seeking something different. Something human. As fellow WLUW employee, Ciara Rose Belfiore, the production director puts it, “I think it’s a really important way for people to discover new music.”  

In that way, the tedious, yet ever important job of filtering through emails and championing unknown artists is a part of contributing to WLUW’s famous motto: “Radio’s not dead, it just moved to college.” College radio survives not because it competes with streaming, but because it offers what streaming can’t—a sense of curation, of discovery shaped by real people with real taste. Audrey sees that as the stations goal and responsibility to their listeners. “Radio reminds us that music isn’t just content,” she says. “There is effort and passion behind it. And as long as we keep highlighting the artists who need to be heard, radio stays alive.”