Please don't leave us homeless

As a Miami University English professor since 1965, I've listened to thousands of hours of WMUB. For years I divided my time between WMUB and WGUC, which both featured classical music.

 

Nowadays, under General Manager Cleve Callison and Program Director John Hingsbergen, WMUB is unique in serving our community. From its studios in Oxford to Cincinnati, Dayton, and way beyond, WMUB is sui generis as a public radio station. No other station has a roster of locally produced talk shows like "Interconnect," "Help Desk," "Soundhealth," "Free Advice," and "Forum"; that's five hour-long weekday programs which, in effect, say, "Here we are, world, direct from the Miami Valley, home of Miami University!"

 

What's more, WMUB's "Mama Jazz" show is streamed by night owls from coast to coast.

 

Aside from the access WMUB gives us to such NPR staples as "Car Talk," "A Prairie Home Companion," and "All Things Considered," as a source of local shows WMUB gives listeners a healthy earful of our vibrant university town. WMUB demonstrates our cosmopolitan values, our street cred, to 35,000 listeners, many of whom would feel totally bereft without us.

 

I am shocked and dismayed to hear that WMUB faces budget problems that threaten its existence. From my standpoint as an old-guard RedHawk, WMUB is at least as vital and necessary to us as a new parking garage or student union. The thought of cutbacks at 88.5 FM makes me cry, "Shame!"

 

Last week while driving back from a poetry reading I gave at the University of Findlay, I was perhaps 30 miles north of Dayton on I 75, listening to something mediocre on the FM dial. I pressed my car radio's number-one preset button and, lo and behold, "The Diane Rehm Show" greeted me loud and clear from WMUB. Suddenly, I felt I was home.

 

Please don't leave us homeless. Please help WMUB continue to be the glowing hearth it has been for more than 50 years.

 

Thank you.

 

--James Reiss, Professor of English & Founding Editor, Miami University Press