In a 1947 letter to WPRU at Princeton University, Smith College student Betty Specht asks for advice about the feasibility of setting up a college radio station, writing that there is a feeling that they are, “very much out of the fashion by lacking this modern convenience.” Ensuing correspondence with other radio stations provides further guidance. Mary P. O’Donnell, the Program Director at Radcliffe College station WRAD, writes with a grim update from the struggling station that was on the brink of going broke, warning the women at Smith to “not think about starting a station unless you are ready and willing to lay out your own money.” She concludes on a more upbeat note, saying, “in spite of all, college radio is goodly fun — if you have a strong heart.”
Smith College Radio Dates Back to the 1940s with WCSR
Undeterred, students at Smith formed a Radio Club in 1947 and joined the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). They attended IBS conferences, building connections with nearby stations. This resulted in the first Smith Radio broadcast in February 1948 over WMS at Williams College. As the 1947-1948 school year drew to a close, the Smith Radio Club had 96 members and was making plans for its AM carrier current debut in fall 1948. After test broadcasts that fall, the official launch of WCSR took place in January 1949. Transmitting out of a Smith-owned garage, the station could be heard over 600 AM on campus radios.
Within a month of its initial broadcast, WCSR convened the first meeting of The Connecticut Valley Network, to discuss the sharing of programming among stations at Smith, University of Connecticut, Wesleyan and Trinity. Meanwhile, talks were also underway with the even more local stations at UMass Amherst and Mount Holyoke and Amherst Colleges. This resulted in the launch of the Pioneer Broadcasting System in 1950, which led to a multi-year relationship in which stations shared programming and worked together to attract advertisers.
WOZQ-FM Launches in 1982
Nearly eighty years later, much is different and much is the same for Smith College Radio. The current station, WOZQ (pronounced woahzeeQ by the Smith community), broadcasts at 91.9 FM in Northampton, Massachusetts and online via Mixlr. Launching over FM in 1982, WOZQ-FM is the descendant of WCSR (which ceased operations in 1956) and WRSC, a carrier current station that operated at Smith College starting in the mid-1970s.
Touring WOZQ in 2026
On a chilly day in early March 2026, the Smith College campus was blanketed with a fresh layer of newly-fallen snow. Members of the WOZQ board had recently returned from the IBS conference in New York City and were energized by the opportunity to connect with college radio participants, including representatives from another station at a historically women’s college: Simmons University Radio. WOZQ Tech Director Bella Bandura said that someone from the Simmons station sought them out at the conference to share compliments about WOZQ’s unique branding. “She told us that she’s been inspired by our collaging vibe,” Bandura relayed. At the conference, WOZQers handed out examples of their promotional pieces, including pink matchbooks emblazoned with the station’s black bat logo. The Simmons station is taking cues from the WOZQ aesthetic, adopting ideas from the station’s Instagram page and publicity materials for its own social media posts.
This recent experience at IBS is a beautiful example of the friendly relationships that generations of Smith Radio students have forged with other college radio stations. From the earliest days of radio on campus, students were engaging with stations near and far in order to learn, grow, and expand their reach. And this is still the case in 2026, as WOZQ continues to work with stations in the Five College Consortium (Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College, Amherst College and UMass Amherst) on shared events. Last fall, WOZQ, Amherst College’s WAMH (see my tour) and UMass Amherst’s WMUA (see my tour) collaborated on “BODIES,” an event featuring DJs from each school doing “party sets” of music.
Embracing the DIY Ethos at WOZQ
Past and present collide at WOZQ in countless ways. Old posters, flyers, and photos hang on the station’s walls and vintage equipment, ephemera and recordings are tucked away in hidden locations. The adorably retro WOZQ website resides on neocities. With a pink background and hand-drawn imagery (including the spring program schedule) the site feels like it was plucked from the DIY blog days of the late 1990s/early 2000s. A September 2025 announcement atop the site reads, “Welcome to our blog/website/thing! Trying something new because we wanna get back to WOZQ’s DIY roots and decrease our reliance on big tech and streaming…Imagine we are back in the myspace/tumblr/livejournal days, which none of us are even old enough to remember lol..”
The Allure of Radio
The WOZQ crew’s appreciation for human-curated playlists and human-created art was apparent during my visit. Tech Director Chris Park said, “Especially now with the rise of AI, people don’t want to listen to artificially or…algorithmically-curated things,” noting, “Algorithms have become so oversaturated in our lives and it feels emotionally inauthentic, at least for me, to listen to…a Spotify AI DJ.” While doing an early morning show she was amazed to learn about a sleep-deprived listener who regularly tuned in on the terrestrial dial. “I thought that was really lovely. And I like the thought that I could be …keep[ing] somebody company late at night when there’s no other voice around. And it’s …a real human, authentic voice in real time talking to you and not a recording or an algorithmically generated thing.”
Radios in the Houses at Smith College
A few years back the WOZQ board made an effort to supply radios to all the campus houses so that students could hear the station. Bandura said that the cute little pink radios still exist in bathrooms and living rooms of most houses. Whenever she encounters a radio in the houses, she makes sure to tune it to WOZQ. Part of what she enjoys is hearing Smith students on the air talking about the music. “…it just sounds very authentic and homemade. And it doesn’t feel like I’m listening to iHeart radio,” she said. Park expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “I want to tune into the radio and I want to hear people talking about why they chose their songs and why they played these songs in a particular order.”
Variety of Shows and Curated New Music Mix
Tuning in to WOZQ, one definitely hears live DJs, often speaking in very personal terms about their music choices. On a Monday night in April, a psychedelic rock-inspired mix on the show “Who Cooks for You?” included the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Talking Heads, Guided by Voices, Pavement and FKA Twigs. The show hosts (DJ BirdDog and DJ Turducken) also played music that touched on themes appropriate to the day (4/20), with songs like “Caught High” (Kitty Craft), “Stoned at the Nail Salon” (Lorde) and “Phish Pepsi” (Wednesday).
Specialty Shows with International Music Emphasis
During the rare times (and late night hours) when there isn’t a live show on WOZQ, a curated mix of new music plays. DJs doing “general” music shows are also required to play at least four new releases an hour. Music Director Rinal Dahhan has worked to diversify the new releases list in a number of ways. “I was…very frustrated by the new releases when I was a DJ my first couple of semesters. So I’ve added a lot more…women of color, women in general,” Dahhan explained, noting, “I love indie rock, but I also want to make sure people are…exposing themselves to…other different really, really cool stuff.” Dahhan hosts an Arabic alternative music show and enjoys providing listeners with details about artists’ backstories as well as information about the non-English lyrical content, explaining, “obviously a lot of listeners don’t understand Arabic and that’s okay.” This emphasis on breadth of genres is echoed by other current board members, several of whom do specialty music shows.
Bandura, a junior, has been hosting a Brazilian music show ever since her first semester at WOZQ. Inspired by her parents, who met at a record store in Brazil, she said, “I have to bring more Brazilian music into my life, into Smith students’ lives.” The program has even caught the attention of the school’s Portugese department and Bandura says that the show is on the syllabus for many of the classes. “They require students to go to some kind of event, either a Portuguese lunch table or listen to my show and write down some songs,” she explained.
High Participation at WOZQ and Packed Schedule
A large organization at Smith College, WOZQ received around 130 show applications this semester. Assistant Station Manager Maya Smith mentioned that quite a few seniors submitted applications. She said that as graduation drew closer, many didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to be involved. The schedule is packed from around 6am to 2am with mostly one-hour shows due to the popularity of the station. For a school of just over 2500 undergraduates, the level of participation is impressive.
WOZQ is run by a student board of around fifteen and there are about 150 DJs. Bandura said that applications have been high for the past few years, so much so that she was shut out of getting a show during her first semester on campus when there were perhaps 200 applicants. There is a general feeling that interest in the station is growing. The managers noted that while going through older materials, they noticed that there were years when the station only had 40 to 50 DJs. Reflecting on why WOZQ is attracting more attention today, Station Manager Alex Rtishchev speculated that this is in part due to promotional activities and efforts to make events and the station more welcoming. “I think college radio can feel a bit [like it’s] only for kids who like indie music or only like certain music,” Rtishchev said. “And I feel like we try to make it accessible…Our events, our studio is just a fun place to be for anyone, no matter what kind of music you like.”
Main Studio + The Clubhouse
Located on the bottom floor of the Julia Child Campus Center, WOZQ’s compact space includes an office area, studio, closet, and a physical music library containing CDs and vinyl records. WOZQ also has access to the old station space, known as “the clubhouse.” Housed on the upper floors of a nearby building, the former digs appear frozen in time. One can imagine DJs from the 1980s and 1990s sitting in the hot pink-walled studio, playing the vinyl records and CDs that are stashed in U.S.P.S. mail tubs. Vintage mixing consoles, a reel-to-reel player, and old carts are reminders of the days before digital music hit the scene. While glancing through files and paperwork, Smith, Bandura and Dahhan chuckled about show names and flyers that they ran across, but also repeatedly mentioned promotional ideas that were being sparked by the materials.
Up another flight of stairs, in the clubhouse attic, sits the station’s transmitter room. Rarely visited by current WOZQers, clues in the space indicate that in the past it was also used as a record library and office. With pink and purple walls, the main room is largely empty except for the transmitter, a table and a few chairs. Past that room is a nook containing built-in shelves dotted with small strips of tape with faded, hand-written genres labels, indicating the old sections for Latin, Irish/Celtic, Punk/Hardcore/Loud Rock, Classic Rock, and 80’s records. There’s talk of reactivating these former WOZQ spaces, which were largely vacated after the station moved to the new campus center.
WOZQ Events: Prom, Concerts, Mixtape CDs and Botanic Boogie
In addition to its on-air activities, WOZQ hosts a variety of events. So far in 2026, there’s been a “very creepy Valentine’s Day concert,” a large spring concert featuring bands Computerwife and Blue Mena, and “The Botanic Boogie,” in which WOZQ curated playlists for various greenhouses at the Smith Botanic Garden. The station also crafted mixtape CD-grams, inviting students to buy the 1-hour music mixes as Valentine’s Day gifts. Last fall, the station’s big concert featured bands Wishy and Starcleaner Reunion playing a prom-themed show, complete with photo booth, prom court, and attendees in dressy attire.
Throughout this academic year, some WOZQ-hosted concerts have included bands from Smith College (The Novabrides and Total Reve played at the Back to School Garden Concert in September) in addition to artists from out-of-town. Rtishchev said that when planning concerts, WOZQ makes an effort to book artists who are female identifying or transgender, explaining that the station tries to showcase these artists “because we are a school of gender minorities and we want the music that we [showcase] to not only represent us, but be empowering to us.”
On-Air Takeover Show Features Women of Color
Another way that female artists have been highlighted at WOZQ is through a partnership with the Smith College journal Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. On February 12, the journal did a “takeover” of the WOZQ airwaves, with station DJs playing music by women of color for an entire day. Dahhan is an intern at Meridians and was thrilled by the collaboration. “I listened to WOZQ that whole day and it was such a great day of radio because…every show was so different, but so awesome.” Inspired by the takeover, Dahhan hopes that WOZQ will make it a regular on-air event.
Closing out the Visit in the Studio
As I wrapped up my visit, WOZQ PR/Communications Director Gaby Adams arrived in the studio to cover for a friend’s show. After beginning her show with “Girl Feels Good” by FKA Twigs, she took time to chat a bit with me between mic breaks. The ethereal and shoegazy hoodie x James K track “Scorpio” provided the perfect soundtrack as we talked about music and WOZQ. A senior, Adams told me that “it’s kind of bittersweet” to be getting closer to graduation. A fan of trip hop, ambient and electronic music in general, she’s had a show every semester since her arrival at Smith. In addition to enjoying all the “fun events” put on by WOZQ, she appreciates being in a community of music fans, telling me, “I love how passionate everyone is about music.”
Thanks to WOZQ + Station Tour Archive
Thanks to everyone at WOZQ for sharing your station with me. It was such a treat seeing all of the station spaces and learning more about the history of radio at Smith College. This is my 200th radio station tour report and my 141st college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in the Radio Survivor archives.
