Tune Into WSRU Radio

By: Mary Grace Donaldson
Posted In: News

Newport R.I.-It’s almost 10 p.m. on a Thursday night in the basement of Salve Regina University’s Wakehurst Student Center. Students are grazing through their study materials on comfy couches, the community TV sets are blaring, and students Justin Wood and Nicole Baldassari have just come through the back door and are headed toward the small, soundproof studio behind the basement’s indoor glass window. It’s time for their weekly radio show, “Awesomesauce with Minerva and the Boss.”

Baldassari and Wood are just two DJs who are part of WSRU, Salve Regina’s student-run radio station. The station is home to about twenty five student DJs who produce and broadcast their own shows, sometimes for pleasure and in other cases, to help them become DJs for major radio stations in the future.

According to station manager and Salve Regina senior Joe Errico, any student can have a radio show if he or she wants one. Errico and senior Frank Gaspar, assistant manager, do no formal recruiting for the station. According to Errico most students hear about WSRU by word of mouth.

“I don’t think of it like a job,” said Errico on his position as station manager. He goes on to say how the effort of students makes his job easier, making WSRU truly a radio station by the students, for the students, as was the intention upon the station’s creation.

Errico only has to open the door to the studio in the morning, and then he will occasionally drop in on a broadcast with Gaspar. The DJs know what they are doing, Errico says. He says that the DJs are eager to approach him in passing about possible ideas for their show, or for the station as a whole. They are more like a family than a group, not just nodding when they run into each other in between classes but actually engaging in conversation.

While every show is different, the DJs have a common goal: they want WSRU to be known throughout campus. Many students are not even aware that Salve has a radio station. They would like to expand on the promotions that were incorporated into all of the shows this semester, and have more contests.

The shows to which WSRU is home come in a wide variety of genres.

“Awesomesauce,” according to its DJs Baldassari and Wood, focuses on heavy metal. Another radio show, “Phil and Steve Do America,” the title a spin-off on “Bevis and Butt-Head Do America,” is made up of mostly 80s and 90s rock, says the one of the show’s DJs sophomore Phil Cervelli, who DJs and produces the show with his former roommate.

“I have always been a really big fan of listening to the radio,” said Cervelli, who aspires to be a professional radio DJ.

Cervelli and co-host Steve Boreen, started working with WSRU as freshmen, when Boreen expressed interest in a show and asked Cervelli to come on board. Cervelli says that if it were not for his roommate’s interest, he would have hesitated to join the station as a first-semester freshman. “He’s more of a go-getter than I am,” said Cervelli. Cervelli is now glad that he started his show early in his college career.

One year after the creation of “Phil and Steve Do America,” the two hold the record for the most listeners for one show in WSRU history, and the station student executive board has asked if the duo could broadcast more than just on Thursday from 6:30-8pm.

Cervelli and Boreen spend their hour-and-a-half long show not only playing music but also making use of their senses of humor. They investigate seemingly comical news stories, report on upcoming events in Newport, and even give dating tips. Cervelli, who would ideally like to make a professional career out of sports reporting, will occasionally give a university sports segment if time permits.

The radio station, however, was not always a thriving activity on campus.

The station has taken off in the past two years, in spite of the construction of the studio during the Wakehurst Student Center’s renovation about twelve years ago. Student leadership was minimal at best, and the station did not stream online but was only accessible through channel 72 on cable television.

“It’s been exciting watching.or observing.what the students have accomplished,” said Bart Carithers, Salve Regina’s director of student activities and adviser to WSRU.

Carithers speaks very highly of the group of student DJs that he describes as dedicated and eclectic. He states that he hasn’t had to be hands-on with the group, as they have given their all to what had been a suffering student activity on campus. He also says that the station’s move online four years ago gave a large boost to its numbers.

Salve Regina students can listen to WSRU streaming live online, at wsruradio.net, or they can hear the station on the first floor of Wakehurst. The station is also always interested in the addition of new DJs. For more information on how to become a WSRU DJ, click on the “Get Involved” tab at wsruradio.net.