By: Ava Folcarelli 

This semester, Holy Family brought to life the creative podcast and vlogging studio of its dreams. Fully equipped with professional vlogging and podcasting technology, the opportunities are endless when it comes to honing one’s creative skill set here at the university. As a student currently enrolled in the Podcast & Vlogging course, taught by Dr. Robert Ficociello, I, along with my peers, have had the pleasure of being the first of many to utilize this professional equipment. 

The Podcast & Vlogging course at HFU gives students the opportunity for a hands-on, creative experience. Whether you are an English, Communications, or even a Nursing major looking for a free elective, this course might appeal to you. This course, along with the ample help of the studio, provides students with the tools to guarantee their creative success. 

I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Alappat, the university’s VPAA (Vice President of Academic Affairs), to discuss her significant role in bringing this studio to life: 

Ava: How would you measure the level of success of the podcast studio, as you put it together? 

Dr. Alappat: I think in the podcast studio success, if I’m looking at it, I don’t think there is one thing I can use to measure it, right? It should be a number of things that are put together to see whether that is successful. I mean, students are participating–that’s one measure of success. But on the other side, I would, as we develop into something more, I want to see what’s the impact it’s having to help our students, our own students. I would say that just the use of that room is not the only measure. So we could measure that if there is a way to measure what the real learning outcome that students gained before they get into this podcast, and you know, after they do this, how did they improve? So it kind of makes for not one measure, but there are many different ways we can commit as a success. 

Ava: How do you see the podcast studio fitting into the university’s Bold Ideas Hub? 

Dr. Alappat: So that’s what the strategic plan is, more of that bold visioning–the vision of the university. Now, how does this align? I can think of a number of ways. One of the goals in my academic affairs area is to bring interdisciplinarity into the programs: experiential, more learning, experiential learning opportunities for students. And this is the right fit into that space there because we traditionally have the students majoring in different areas, and that’s what used to be the curriculum. But now it’s more into, oh, can students engage in faculty-student collaboration? Can students engage in experiential learning? Can students do interdisciplinary work, whether it is biology and marketing or nursing, etc? You know, we want our students to think about I think the podcast studio can be the path for this. 

Ava: Do you have any other project ideas? 

Dr. Alappat: I don’t know exactly what I want to see as the new project coming out of the podcast studio, but I would say there are a number of initiatives that are happening through the academic affairs side. So I was thinking…Maybe I can give an example. I have an Assistant Vice President here–she and I work with students and the faculty to send a few students to international research experiences. They go out to another country to do research, fully funded. Many people probably don’t know that at all. The students get a great experience, a learning experience, globalization, you name it, all those extra things they are learning. And maybe that’s something–once they go into those opportunities, they experience, come back, and then somebody here makes a podcast of that experience. Make podcasts about these opportunities for students, and then people might watch more. There’s this shared space created by the students, and that may be a space where we could really use promoting these kinds of things. We might attract more students, too, right? You know, they see the opportunities. 

After sitting down with Dr. Alapatt, I decided to hear from those who have experienced the studio first-hand:

“I cannot overstate its importance, as I believe that students from a myriad of classes and majors can take advantage of the unique opportunity to produce audio projects on-campus. My experience with the podcast studio has strengthened my production abilities, as well as my confidence, in both academic and creator settings.” (Taylor Clark) 

“The podcast studio has been awesome; it’s really legit equipment, which has given me the opportunity to make my podcast really high quality. Overall, I think it allows students to express themselves creatively and have all the tools they need to do so!” (Nathan Kuhta) 

Having this experience and knowledge at the hands of a student, like myself, who studies ways to be creative both verbally and through my written skills, has been a huge help towards my success.

Ava Folcarelli is a Junior at Holy Family University, majoring in English. Her studies primarily focus on critical analysis and mastering the practice of editing. She is the co-executive editor and Vice President of Tri-Lite, the university’s newspaper, as well as the Vice President of Writers’ Bloc, the university’s writing club. She plans to graduate in the spring of 2027.