WITR

Nestled in the basement of the Student Alumni Union (SAU), the WITR radio station space is a treasure trove of music, personalities, and nostalgia. The station and the music have greatly evolved since its first broadcast in 1961, but one thing has remained constant: the tight-knit network of students and alumni.

The opportunity to make connections on such a large campus is what drew Sejjemba Magoye to WITR from the small town of Golden, Colo.

“It’s one of those things that is so easy to stumble into, and then it becomes such a serious part of your college experience,” said Magoye, a second-year game design and development major.

Upham and Magoye are just two of the hundreds of community members, past and present, who keep the station’s airwaves flowing.

Keep reading to discover some of the station’s student-led projects, on-air personalities, and brains behind the technology.

WITR’s music library contains over 80,000 CDs and vinyl discs. Fourth-year student Riley Mason was enthralled by the collection when she became a member of WITR.

“Access to the library is a really big selling point for members to join, but in practice, finding specific items in the collection wasn’t easy,” said Mason, from Mililani, Hawaii. “It was like an adventure every time you went in there.”

This past spring, Mason and Caitlin McCabe ’24 (museum studies and history) embraced their background as museum studies students and created a new cataloging system to better document what was in the library.

The collection’s genres range from alternative music to jazz, rap, country, reggae, metal, and beyond—truly embodying the station’s tagline, “modern music and more!”

McCabe said that the variety within the collection reflects the many students who helped build it through the years.

“It’s like the layers in sandstone. It’s a physical manifestation that shows what genres were really popular among our students at all the different points of time since the station first began,” said McCabe.

As the pair dug into their project, it sparked other members’ interest. Some wanted to help with the library cataloging, and others, like Emma Nastro ’24 (museum studies), were motivated to learn more about WITR’s history.

After finding copies of past WITR program guides in the RIT Archives, Nastro felt inspired to revive them. While they started as an advertisement for the station, members added their own spice to the guides over the years by including illustrations, inside jokes, and campus commentary.

“You could tell how much history and community was in the station when reading the old guides, and we wanted to share our own story,” said Nastro, from Oceanside, N.Y.

In December 2023, WITR started releasing new program guides, distributed exclusively in print at select locations around campus—an homage to the guides’ origins. Now that Nastro has graduated, Mikayla Stolarsky is taking the lead on editing and producing the new guides.

“It’s incredible to be able to take this part of the station’s history and give it a new life,” said Stolarsky, WITR member and fourth-year individualized program major studying design and studio art, from Newton, N.J. “If people have half as much fun reading the guides as we have making them, it’s all worth it.”

Erik Golen ’03 (computer engineering), ’09 Ph.D. (computing and information sciences), senior lecturer for Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, made his DJ debut on WITR in March 2020.

Known on air as “DJ Boston Erik,” Golen hosts That Flannel Show, a specialty ’90s grunge and alternative program that broadcasts every Friday from 9 a.m. to noon in Studio X, which opened in 2015 on the first floor of the SAU. Below, he shares insights on being a DJ.

How does one become a DJ at the station?
Typically, you start by training with the station’s program director. They teach you what you should and shouldn’t do on air and the general flow for a show. Then you can host shows on the WITR Underground, which streams on our website. To host a show on FM radio in Studio X, you have to create and pass a two-hour demo show.

How do you curate a show?
I like to do themed sets. Sometimes they’re inspired by a listener’s request, other times I’ll do band tributes. I usually start the show with my own selections to give people time to tune in for their requests. After the show, I document the playlist so I can track what I’ve played. I try to not repeat songs too much other than “Cheesecake Truck” and “Closing Time,” which are weekly staples.

Can you still play CDs and vinyls from the music library on air?
We have three CD players that are connected to our soundboard. When you load up a CD, you pick a track, and it sits there waiting until you press the fire button. Some DJs still play a ton of vinyl, so we also have two turntables so you can have one vinyl spinning while you load up the next one.

The station engineers may be invisible to the audience, but their behind-the-scenes efforts ensure that music flows freely.

Remy Rattner joined WITR’s engineering department during his first year at RIT. Now, as chief engineer, he helps his team oversee “anything that plugs in” at the station. This includes managing the equipment and playback systems in both of WITR’s broadcast studios, the station’s website and its servers, the transmitter site at the top of Mark Ellingson Hall, and more.

“Our priority is ensuring that our on-air product has the best sound possible. It’s the driving force behind everything we do,” said Rattner, from Greenwich, Conn.

Many of the engineers come from RIT’s computing college, but anyone who is willing to learn can work with the team. Rattner himself is a third-year management information systems major, which is based in Saunders College of Business.

In recent years, the engineering team has embarked on projects big and small, including renovating and rebuilding both of WITR’s broadcast studios.

Former chief engineer Mike Vasile ’22 (computing and information technologies), who currently serves as a WITR station adviser, initiated projects that brought the station’s systems up to industry standards, including replacing equipment to produce a higher quality sound and increase the reach of the station’s broadcast. He now works as a computer support administrator at RIT.

“The ability to work on something like this that the average person doesn’t get to see is really special,” said Vasile. “I think all of my experiences working at the station as a student taught me valuable lessons that I still use in my current job.”