Happy Nice Mall

The corridors of WMBR are quiet – empty of DJs who have to scour the shelves in search of the perfect song, engineers get the equipment to broadcast throughout the Boston area. The MIT campus radio station closed its doors in the basement of Walker Memorial in March 2020 when the Institute sent staff and students home at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. While the campus has reopened on a limited basis for 2020-’21, the broadcast studio has been closed to most DJs for over a year.

But the 178 students and others involved in running the WMBR were not about to let this decades-old institution shrink. You can still tune in to 88.1 FM 24 hours a day and start a pop-punk and rock show. Breakfast of Champions or chirp along with Americana, country and bluegrass FM Way—all pre-recorded and edited from the security of the DJs’ homes and sent to Brian Sennett ’13, MEng ’15, host of the classic show. Music from Dead People and WMBR’s technical director.

Sennett said, when campus was closed, “somebody wise would say, ‘Get all the equipment you need to keep things running. This will take some time.”

Sennett joined WMBR as a sophomore in 2010 and is one of 40 alumni still active on the station. This sentiment has a lot to do with this continued alumni engagement and why its members come together to make sure the station and its culture don’t become victims of the pandemic.

generation effect

WMBR is a primarily student-run, all-volunteer group that supports an eclectic array of shows. Community members without MIT membership work with students, alumni, and professors, all led by an MIT student general director, now Julia Arnold.

MIT had a campus radio station since the late 1940s, but it didn’t start using its current call letters meaning “Walker Memorial Basement Radio” until 1979. Then Jon Pollack, SM ’79, Jazz Train, graduate. Shortly involved with the station as a graduate student, Pollack returned in 1987 and has been there ever since.

“I just really enjoy it,” she says. “That’s why I stayed. It’s a part of me at this point.”

The list of WMBR team members reveals graduation dates ranging from 1979 to 2020. Having this deep knowledge has helped the station stay on track as technology and tastes change.

As coach, Sennett auxiliary switch Transitioning from studio to in-home operations in 2020. Now, after seven years in the leadership role, Gillian Roeder has begun training the ’24 to take over by the end of the 2021 fall semester.

“I’m glad that this kind of torch transition has happened between generations,” says Jacob Miske ’20. Uncommon Causes, here playing a mix of old and new underground and counterculture music. “There’s one thing I’m worried about with Covid – the traditions of many cultural student groups are being mixed up by this dead period.”

Evidence of WMBR’s traditions is engraved on the covers of the records and CDs in the station’s extensive music library. Classical, jazz, heavy metal, blues, rock – every genre imaginable is featured in all-round bookshelves.

“We write who’s playing what on each disc,” says Marianna Parker ’00, one of the three rotating hosts of the alt-rock show. King Ghidorah. “I can go to the record library and get a record from 1988 and see John play this, Sue play that.”

While its predecessors provided musical guidance, students benefit even more from working elbow to elbow with alumni and community members. Miske was inspired, for example, by Dave Goodman, host of WMBR’s political show. sound and anger. A longtime radio professional, Goodman did not attend MIT but worked with WMBR for 30 years.

“Through his show and speaking with him, he motivated me to go out and engage politically in the 2016 and 2020 primaries,” Miske says.

As for Parker, who has volunteered for WMBR since 2012 and is now a doctor after a brief hiatus after graduation, she hopes her professional journey will offer her own encouragement to the students she meets through the station.

“I wasn’t pre-med. I went and did other things, then went back to med school,” Parker says. “I hope they see in me a person who takes a slightly different path and can see a path to their future.”

FCC is the limit

Parker is also involved with WMBR as president of Technology Broadcasting Corporation (TBC), an organization that holds the station’s FCC license and oversees the station’s long-term financial and legal health. This company of students, professors and alumni is one of the things that sets WMBR apart from other college radio stations. The day-to-day operations are supported by 100% listener donations, while larger projects such as moving the FM transmitter to a higher building in Kendall Square have the support of TBC and MIT.

Just as WMBR is unusual in its support system, it is even more unusual in its programming.

“We really don’t have any rules about what DJs can do, other than FCC compliance,” Parker says.

Sennett learned this on day one when he was picked up by a violinist friend from the MIT Symphony Orchestra.

“I don’t know if he’s into radio, but I have a program in WMBR and I play classical music and death metal,” Sennett said. “I was like, ‘Is he on the same show?’ said. And he said ‘Yes’. That’s what we do at WMBR.”

“Many other radio stations have some sort of programming board that decides what to air,” says Valentina Chamorro ’16, host of the poetry show. Lentils and Stone. “WMBR just doesn’t have that. It’s a huge platform where we can all do whatever we want, and it’s an incredible privilege.”

It has been hard to miss the friendship and live radio experience for many members during the Covid-19 era. But they’ve adapted by learning new skills, such as using the audio editing software GarageBand. He keeps the station alive, although some presenters admit that the result sounds more like podcasts than radio. And the leadership hopes to keep the option of remote production open so graduates can present the shows from anywhere.

But for many DJs, the chance to get back to the station – rummaging through the stacks and saying hello to their colleagues – can’t be close enough.

“When I arrive and the DJ in front of me is on the air, I feel like I’m on a ship’s bridge,” Sennett says. “The music is playing and it’s your turn. You flip the switch to go on air and you hit the game and the ship is in your hands. Then you say hello to the next person who walks in – someone you haven’t seen in a week. They go on and you think, ‘Now the ship’s in someone else’s hands.’ I have done my duty.'”