Faculty podcasting can be a great way to promote academic expertise to external audiences.
As reported in “History Teacher Becomes Podcast Celebrity” published today in The New York Times, Lars Brownworth, a history teacher at a boarding school in Long Island, NY, the Stony Brook School, has become a podcasting success story with his series about the Byzantine Empire reaching 140,000 listeners from around the world:
In barely 18 months, Mr. Brownworth’s podcast, “12 Byzantine Rulersâ€, has become one of the phenomena of the podcasting world. A survey of 1,200 years of rather abstruse history, starting with Diocletian in 284 and finishing with Constantine XI Palaeologus in 1453, “12 Byzantine Rulers†routinely ranks in the top five educational podcasts on iTunes, and in the top 50 of all podcasts.
I actually started to listen to these podcasts last summer and got hooked as the other listeners did. These podcasts are engaging and full of lively stories about these emperors – whom I wouldn’t call the nicest people in the world ;-)
I’ve just found out in the NYT article (well, I didn’t look/google him up before) that Brownworth isn’t a college professor and holds a BA in history – not a Master or a Ph.D.
So, besides his true passion for the Byzantine Empire, what makes Brownworth’s podcasts so different compared to most of the faculty podcasts out there?
They aren’t just recorded lectures. They are written to be podcasted and rehearsed as described in the NYT article:
That night, though, Mr. Brownworth, 31, set to work in his own apartment, writing an essay about Alexius I Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. After revision and rehearsal, the text would become the script for the latest installment of Mr. Brownworth’s podcast.
Brownworth has also a nice voice (he should think about going into video podcasting as he happens to be a good looking man, too – but I digress ;-)
If your institution is really toying with the idea of using faculty podcasts to promote academic expertise or excellence to external audiences, it would probably be a good idea to “cast” your potential candidates and try to have them create something targeted to the medium.
I know, I know that’s probably not part of their job description and wouldn’t even be something taken into consideration by tenure committees, but you won’t find a rare bird if you don’t look for it.
What do you think? Do you have a very successful faculty podcast at your institution? Let us know by posting a comment!