WCWM Station Manager Cara Davis ’23 never expected to be involved with a campus radio station when she started thinking about college. But during her freshman year, the government major from Richmond joined WCWM 90.9 FM, the College of William and Mary’s student-run radio station, and never looked back.
“I’ve always loved music my whole life, because my dad and my brother and my sister are very into music,” Davis said. “So I thought it would be a really cool thing to be a part of, to get my own radio show. But never in my life had I been to a radio station before college. I just went to the meetings, and everyone was super, super nice.”
WCWM dates back to 1959 and currently has a broadcasting range of about 30 miles. The station broadcasts 24-hours a day and is hosted by students and faculty members at the College. The programming consists of a wide spectrum of formats, and Davis herself emphasized the variety of shows that hosts are involved with, from interviews to call-ins to purely music-based shows.
“We broadcast with the intention of exposing listeners to a diverse selection of underground and independent music, whether it be from up-and-coming artists or from older, forgotten favorites,” the WCWM website says.
On campus, Davis is active in Alpha Phi Omega, a gender-inclusive service fraternity, and is heavily involved with WCWM, moving into various executive roles before becoming a station manager. Davis mentioned that her main goal is to make the station an inclusive community for all members. She also meets with administration and the radio executive board to prepare for the radio station’s move to the Sadler West expansion this summer from their current location in Campus Center.
“It’s a lot of fun, it’s a lot of responsibility,” Davis said. “It’s a lot of just overseeing our different projects that are going on. We’ve been fundraising recently to get a storage unit to store our vinyl that won’t be able to fit in the new expansion.”
Prior to her current position, Davis acted as a genre director, library director and events director. She mentioned that her previous positions allowed her to become quite familiar with the station’s large collection of vinyl records and CDs.
“We have over 20,000 vinyl records, and I think we’re something around the same ballpark of around 20,000 CDs as well,” Davis said. “We have one of the largest historical collections of vinyl on the East Coast, I believe.”
Davis added that working firsthand with this historical collection allowed her to become passionate about the preservation effort, even reaching out to the College and radio alumni to hear about what this collection means to them, as well as their experiences working with the collection as students.
“Before all of the computers and stuff, how people did their shows was with that collection. So, it’s really cool to still have all of the original records that were there when the station was founded,” Davis said.
The station is still collecting vinyl records but has slowed down over the years. Davis mentioned that typically, vinyl found a home at the station when record companies would send promotional records to play on air. Now, many records that the station receives are from smaller bands.
“We definitely want to hold onto the collection and make sure that it’s open to the public,” Davis said. “Long-term, we’d like to get a space on campus to preserve the collection and make it accessible to everyone on campus, kind of like how the library works. It’s a little hard to tell at the exact moment what’s going to happen, but we’d love to make it something that’s open to everyone. It’s such a great resource and a really cool historical artifact to have.”
Davis explained that she originally joined radio just so she could have a radio show, but that she has now met a welcoming community and found many friends through the club. Some of her favorite shows from fellow student-hosts are “I Hate Music” by John Dietz ’24, “Face for Radio” by David Lefkowitz ’22, “Jam and Toast” by Isabel Haber ’22 and “808s and Nephews” by Sophia Haile ’23 and Vivian Rust ’23.
“Most likely after college, I’m not going to work in radio, so I don’t know when else in my life I would be able to have just a block of an hour on air every week where I can do whatever I want,” Davis said. “It’s just a really fun outlet to have for creative expression.”
Davis’s current favorite artists and music include Jake Bugg, Bob Dylan, Lucy Dacus, Dolly Parton and the soundtrack of High Fidelity, a show about a Brooklyn-based record-store owner starring Zoë Kravitz.
“Most likely after college, I’m not going to work in radio, so I don’t know when else in my life I would be able to have just a block of an hour on air every week where I can do whatever I want”
“Radio’s important because it’s such a cool medium, although it’s somewhat going out of popularity a little bit. College is such a unique period where people can get involved in doing that. It’s such a cool way to be able to explore different music genres,” she said.
Davis also enjoys the ability to feature local or smaller bands on air to give them more exposure. She’s even been able to play some of her friend’s sibling’s bands and the music of College alumni.
“When I first started radio, I was so nervous talking into the mic, I would script everything out beforehand,” she said. “And now I don’t really do any of that, honestly, I think it’s helped me with my public speaking a lot. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable talking, even though you can’t see your audience when you’re just talking into a microphone in a room.”
She also expressed that those involved with radio do not necessarily have to have a show, with positions such as equipment director, underwriting director and social media director available to club members.
“When I first started radio, I was so nervous talking into the mic, I would script everything out beforehand. And now I don’t really do any of that, honestly, I think it’s helped me with my public speaking a lot. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable talking, even though you can’t see your audience when you’re just talking into a microphone in a room”
“We also have Vinyl Tap Magazine, which is not run by radio exec, but is an affiliate. And that is by Editor-in-Chief Isabel Haber, and that’s really fun. That’s a great outlet for us to have a magazine all about music and culture that is really exciting,” Davis said.
Davis also highlighted the variety of events that WCWM hosts for the campus community, as well as its members, during the academic year, including clothing swaps, movie nights, mending parties and, most recently, a Dungeons & Dragons game. The largest event of the year, however, is WCWM Fest, currently scheduled to occur on Saturday, April 30 from 4-9 p.m. in the Sunken Gardens.
“It’ll be a really big thing; it’ll be really fun. Lots of music, lots of activities to see, lots of space to just hang out on the Sunken Gardens and watch and hear some live music and support local bands. We’re very, very pumped about it,” Davis said.
WCWM Fest will feature seven student bands – Petite League, a band from Syracuse, NY, Sydney Gish, an indie artist, two dance performances from Syndicate, the College’s student-choreographed hip hop dance team and W&M Griffin Bhangra, the College’s competitive bhangra team. Many campus clubs will also be participating in a variety of tabling activities – including Veggie Society, Nerf Club, Slacklining Club and Vinyl Tap Magazine.
For incoming students, Davis recommends trying out every club that may seem interesting.
“I’m very grateful to be in the position I am as station manager,” Davis said. “I have loved being part of radio so much, and the fact that I’m now helping to run radio is really just wonderful to me and really exciting to be part of. It’s really cool to be a part of continuing that history, and I’m very excited for Fest on April 30th, and I cannot wait to see the William & Mary community come out to it.”
