In an attempt to make the faculty more accessible to the public, the Dartmouth Office of Public Affairs recently created a series of audio programs made available online through a new format called "podcasting."
The series, "Views from the Green," is a production of interviews with members of the Dartmouth community, primarily faculty members, on a range of different topics.
The public affairs office decided to implement podcasting in order to make the work of professors and other members of the Dartmouth community easily available to the outside world, according to Public Affairs Officer Susan Knapp.
"Clearly podcasting is gaining popularity, so we at the Public Affairs office thought it was time to do it. There have always been audio files available. We just needed to formalize it," she said.
The public affairs office hopes to reach students, faculty, the media, journalists and other scholars needing to receive information on the topics hosted, Knapp said.
"The sky is the limit, it is not just faculty," she said. "We are open to ideas, to express opinions and showcase our expertise."
An interview with economics professor and Director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center Andrew Samwick is currently featured as a podcast, discussing the Social Security reform plan.
Samwick remarked that one of the challenges of the podcast experience was explaining his technical academic work in a way that a broad range of people could understand.
Having recently collaborated with two colleagues on a template for Congress regarding the issues of Social Security reform, Samwick outlined the reasons and basic elements for the plan, as well as how the plan will be used.
Government professor John Carey also currently has an audio program on which he discusses, in interview format, the new controversial president of Bolivia. Carey discusses the political impact that the first native president of the country will have for Latin America and the United States.
According to Knapp, philosophy professors Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Susan Brison will feature in the podcasting project in the coming months.
The term podcasting was coined to describe the use of RSS syndication to make audio content available for listening on personal computers and other audio devices such as Apple iPods.
The RSS format on which the podcasts run stands for "Really Simple Syndication," and allows users to subscribe to a wide variety of content such as news headlines, weblogs and podcasts.
