Sip a caffeinated (or decaf) hot drink and listen to a blend of tech talk and comedy with “Coffee Break,” a recently relaunched podcast from Lafayette College’s information technology services division.
The podcast, hosted by instructional technologist Chelsea Emrick and web developer Jim Nicnick, covers innovations in the tech sphere at Lafayette College and beyond.
Emrick said that the podcast is intended to “bring awareness to some of the higher-ed technology happening both at the institution and then globally as well.”
“We’re having conversations not only amongst ourselves and ITS but with others on campus,” she continued.
Emrick and Nicnick have provided perspectives on the newest technology on campus and interviewed members of the faculty and IT on AI, including Dean of Arts, Humanities and Interdisciplinary Programs Tim Laquintano and Academic Technology Liaison Adam MacHose.
“We enjoy having the creative outlet,” Emrick said.
The podcast was originally created in 2005 by Courtney Bentley and Ken Newquist, both part of the ITS department at Lafayette at the time. Newquist said that the idea for the podcast came from the development of iTunes University, an educational program that allowed institutions to make and share podcasts.
Due to interest in podcasting among faculty members and students, Newquist and Bentley decided to test out the software with their own podcast about the technological advancements that were appearing during the late 2000s.
“We would just talk about technology and geek out over the news of the week,” Newquist said.
The first era of “Coffee Break” ended in 2014, when Newquist and Bentley decided to stop the podcast because the former took on new responsibilities at the college and Bentley branched out from Lafayette.
“We had a good run but we just came to a pause point that lasted until Chelsea and Jim came along,” Newquist said.
Emrick said that she was inspired to update the podcast after the Lafayette Video Podcast Studio in Skillman Library was upgraded to include video.
After obtaining permission from Newquist to bring “Coffee Break” back, she recruited Nicnick to be her co-host.
“If it was an instructional technologist and a web developer who discovered it in the beginning, let it be that as the ones who revamp it,” she said.
Emrick said that future episodes will incorporate what she and Nicnick learned at a podcasting conference they attended and bring awareness to the resources and support available at Lafayette to make digital content more accessible.
“We search for topics that we think are relevant to our community and maybe even make sense of what we’re doing in IT at Lafayette,” Emrick said.
AV Systems Engineer Brent Schnell, the podcast’s producer, is hopeful of the positive impact “Coffee Break” can have on its listeners.
“Hopefully they’re entertained,” Schnell said of listeners. “And then in the process, maybe they picked up a few points, something interesting that they might want to look into further.”
