Project notebook · University of Evansville Student Media
Making room for student voices.
Fireside Aces Radio represents a great deal of work, and a simple idea: the work students create should be easier to find, hear and share.
I have put a great deal of work into building Fireside’s digital presence and bringing its listening experience into a mobile app. As University of Evansville Student Media Advisor, I see that work as part of a larger responsibility: helping students make media that reaches an audience beyond a classroom assignment.
A radio stream, a podcast episode, a magazine article and a short film can look like separate projects. In practice, they share people, skills and stories. Fireside Aces Radio and Crescent Magazine give that work a public home, while the app provides another way for listeners and readers to reach it.
A launch worth documenting.
On March 3, 2026, University Communications announced the Fireside Aces Radio mobile app for the Apple App Store and Google Play. The announcement describes live and prerecorded programming, podcast access and a connection to Crescent Magazine. It also connects Fireside to the wider collaborative work of UE Student Media.
For me, the accomplishment is the connection: giving student-created work more places to live and more ways to reach people. The platform matters because of the people and stories it carries.
Shared work deserves shared credit.
Fireside’s published team credits identify Konner Staley, Allison Borchard and Nina Wilson for website and branding contributions, and Abijah Mersyl Dalion as Podcast Director. The site’s students, hosts, filmmakers and collaborators bring their own work and voices to the platform. My role as advisor sits alongside those contributions.
That distinction matters. A strong student-media platform should make it easier to recognize the people who wrote, designed, recorded, hosted, filmed and produced the work.
From a station to a body of work.
The connections continue through student and partner podcasts, Crescent’s student reporting, and film production. Undergrad, directed by Rylan Robb with me serving as Executive Producer, demonstrates a semester-based filmmaking process. The Switch connects my writing and directing with student performance, production and sound work.
How the Story Gets Told extends that practice into the Journey to Justice program. I direct and produce the documentary series, with Alijah Roberson and Dr. Valerie A. Stein as co-producers. It connects students and community partners with the people, places and living memory of the civil rights movement.
Keep listening. Keep following the work.
Fireside is an accomplishment I am proud to document here, and a place to discover the people who make it meaningful. Listen, read an article, watch a film, and follow the credits to the next person’s work.
Project note by Tommy J. Housman. App launch date and features are documented in the linked University of Evansville news release. Individual student and production credits follow the linked original projects.
