WGLS
The voice of each new generation
By Tobi Schwartz-Cassell ’78
 t
all started with a 10-watt broadcast, direct from Bole Hall. As president
of the Amateur Radio Club in 1964, Eric Wolffbrandt ’66 didn’t
realize he was laying the groundwork for what was to become a major
means of campus communication that would eventually spread world-wide.
“Like all the other organizations on campus, there wasn’t
a lot of formality within the Amateur Radio Club. I spent a lot of
time at the power house on Route 322. I’d go over there and use
the HAM radio to contact a man in Denmark so that our advisor [education
professor William McCavitt] could speak to him in Danish.”
Wolffbrandt heard about the plans for a campus radio station from his
friend, Bob Hoy. A freelance radio engineer, Hoy had been contracted
by GSC’s administration to help apply for the WGLS-FM license. “I’d
already passed the test for my FCC second class license,” Wolffbrandt
recalls. “Bob showed me how to do field test readings, and how
to work up a topographical map to estimate field strength.”
Not long after that, McCavitt submitted the application to the FCC.
It won approval and at the beginning of the Spring ’64 semester,
WGLS-FM was on the air. “It was not the momentous occasion you
would think. One day we just turned the switch on. We played music
(all we were permitted to play was classical and easy listening) and
read the news off the newswire,” Wolffbrandt remembers. “But
we didn’t have any problems filling the shifts because so many
people wanted to be a part of the station and get on the air.”
Radio buffs kept the fledgling station going and in 1969, Gregory
Potter, Sr. M’73, a young professional with part-time radio experience,
took on re-wiring the studios and being the administrative liaison
with the students among his other duties. “The students were
well intended, but the station needed an overhaul,” Potter said. “They
had the basic equipment but they had literally strung wire over the
window frames. I came in and spruced it up a bit.” Back then,
Bole Hall housed the library and WGLS, with its offices and studios
on the second floor. Wolffbrandt shared his office with the transmitter,
recalling that “the antenna was on a little tower right outside
on the roof. There was a ring on top and it looked just like a halo.”
The gods of respectability
But as angelic as the place looked, the staff would soon find themselves
bedevilled by the problem of programming. It became the basis of a
bit of a power struggle between the students and administration. “When
I first came to the station,” said Potter, “the format
was heavy on the entertainment side and lighter on community service
side. The administration felt that we needed to try to rein it in a
little bit. They didn’t want it to be just a club anymore. They
wanted this to be a student organization and a campus resource. This
was to be a voice of the community.”
“Of course we had to pay obeisance to the gods of respectability,” Potter
remembered, “and the way you do that at a campus radio station
is to have a classical music program. The students didn’t want
any part of that. The popular music then was by The Beatles. I understood
their interests, so we had a lot of student-produced programming. But
we also had traditional panel discussions,” said Potter. “With
the Cambodia invasion and students protesting in front of the Bole
building and on Route 322, the station was becoming more involved in
the community so we took more of a public radio approach.”
Format notwithstanding, by 1970, it became apparent that WGLS was bursting
at the seams. Likewise, the administration needed some new space of
its own. So the station and library moved to Savitz Hall, with ’GLS
dispatched to the basement. Just before the relocation, the station’s
power had been increased to 250 watts. But as cutting edge as the programming
had become, the signal boost did nothing to increase listenership.
That problem would be addressed seven years later, but not be resolved
for another 16 years.
The ’70s sound
In 1971, Jim Servino ’78 stepped through the doors of WGLS and
ultimately into his future. Greg Potter had handed off the station
to Bob Blake in 1970 and Blake left three years later. “We heard
there were no plans to replace him and that the college was thinking
about shutting the station down,” recounts Servino. “So
I wrote to President Mark Chamberlain suggesting that he let the students
administer it. My letter was forwarded to Dean Armand Vorce, whose
office contacted me. I drove down from Jersey City that summer to meet
with him,” he said. “After presenting my case, he told
me they’d give it a try, but only if I agreed to be the student
station manager. I guess he figured that any kid who’s going
to take time out from his summer job and drive from Jersey City to
have a conversation about this was worth a shot.”
Eventually, the business office realized that Servino was indeed just
a student and quickly called for a faculty advisor. Servino says, “With
only minor hesitation, Mike Donovan stepped up and said he’d
do it as long as we didn’t screw it up.”
And there were many ways in which the students could have screwed it
up. “When you look at the times, in particular Vietnam and the
Nixon resignation, there was a lot of dissent in the country, so there
could have been a lot of dissent in the programming,” Servino
reflects. “We’d gotten permission to keep the station operating,
but there was never a guarantee. So we rose to the occasion. We pulled
together and relied on our talents. We knew we had to provide the outlet
for all points of view, but it had to be done in a way that gave all
people a share in WGLS.”
That summer, Servino contacted his most trusted fellow students, asking
them to serve in key positions. One of them was his close friend and
future business partner, SGA President Jeff Weber ’75, who eventually
became WGLS news director. He, too, remembers Mike Donovan fondly, “because
he made such a significant contribution to the growth of WGLS and because
he had this fantastic rapport with the students. His hair was longer
than ours!”
Servino’s finishing touch was to ask Larry
Salva ’77—now
senior vice president and controller for Comcast Corporation—to
run the WGLS-FM business department. “He was an accounting major
and I needed someone to keep the school’s financial office happy.” Salva
was glad to oblige. “I had just transferred [to GSC]. This was
the perfect way for me to get involved in the campus community because
it was something I was interested in and a natural because I could
lend my business background to it.”
Now co-owner and VP of New Northwest Broadcasters in Astoria, Oregon,
Servino says, “It was the time I spent as WGLS station manager
that prepared me for my career in radio. I had to identify people’s
talents and get them to ‘play together.’ ”
Servino’s ability to pull people together was a skill his ’GLS
colleagues recognized, too, according to Barbara
Schneitzer Urkoff ’75 and her friend, Carol Salva ’74—who would become Servino’s
wife.
With his dream team now in place and ‘playing together,’ Servino
was ready to take on whatever challenges arose, from community service
with Project Santa marathons to public information on behalf of the
college. Servino recalls, “Dr. Chamberlain trusted us to get
the information out and use the power we had to keep the communication
going.”
WGLS also took to the air broadcasting a course for which students
could earn credits. Long before distance education, Servino carried
remote equipment to the classroom in which music professor and jazz
legend Manny Album conducted his popular “Growth & Development
of Jazz” course. “People on and off campus got to hear
what the community on campus was all about,” Servino says. “And
we had the pleasure of saying ‘Hey, we do some really cool things!’”
Classical music was still part of the ’70s line-up—in the
morning. “During the day, we played what was acceptable to the
offices on campus,” Servino confesses. “In the evening,
we’d play Top 40 and later on we’d play alternative rock.
I guess the theory was: be as palatable as you can when the adults
are listening, then go free-form when they’re watching TV.”
Power and desire
Taking over the reins from Servino was Bob Catania ’76, followed
by Larry DiBona ’77. “Mike Donovan really ran the place,
but always made us feel like we had input.” says DiBona. “We
didn’t have any power, just desire.” Desire for two things,
in fact. “What we wanted,” DiBona explains, “was
credibility and credentialing so we could get a job after college in
broadcasting. That was what we all wanted.”
As DiBona said, the desire was there but the power wasn’t—figuratively
and literally. Since the early ’70s, Servino, Catania, DiBona
and others had complained that the station’s signal didn’t
even cover Glassboro proper. So with Donovan’s help, they applied
for grants to purchase updated equipment and requested more space to
house it.
While they were at it, they asked the FCC for another power increase,
plus an upgrade from mono to stereo. Their dreams of new equipment
and stereo sound came true in 1977. Finding new studio space and the
expertise to re-design and manage the station well would come next.
“I was music director,” says Al Mortka ’78, “and
one day I was sitting with Larry (DiBona) and some others in Mike Donovan’s
office in the Triad. Donovan handed us five résumés,
and as soon as I saw Al Miller’s, I said, ‘This is your
man.’ They called him in Syracuse and the next thing you know
I see Al coming down the hall of the Triad in a light blue suit with
a flower in his lapel, just as homespun as biscuits at a Sunday dinner!”
While Miller met the FCC’s staff requirements for a chief engineer,
the station’s facilities still needed rebuilding, so Donovan
turned to Frank Hogan to freelance the design and construction. Engineer
and on-air talent at WFIL in Philadelphia, Hogan would later join the
faculty part-time and help Donovan develop radio courses and curriculum.
But the new equipment, increase in power and stereo status didn’t
improve the coverage. With its antenna on the side of Savitz and barely
higher than the building itself, “you were lucky if you could
pick us up in Pitman!” said Mortka. So DiBona came up with a
plan to move it to the Glassboro water tower—but it didn’t
happen until the tower’s re-painting in 1993.
With their principal people and shiny new equipment in place, ’GLS
began to hit its stride in the ’70s. Jim
Taylor ’78 remembers
it being a remarkable time for GSC, as well. “That’s when
some big names started to come to the college [for concerts]. But nobody
at ’GLS wanted to do any of the backstage interviews (for broadcast)
so I said ‘I’ll do them!’ And now I have all these
open reels with Billy Joel, Frampton, South Side Johnny...”
Highlights with Billy Joel aside, it’s the day-to-day memories
that people treasure most. For Taylor it was “sitting around
listening to Tom Doyle ’78 reading The Hobbit and waiting for
his voice to crack.” But Mortka’s memories run on a much
more primal level: “We were so glad when we moved out of that
basement (to ground level) because we could finally go to the bathroom
without having to put on a really long record.”
No more winging it
While the ’70s crowd remembers “being thrown on the air
and winging it,” things changed in the ’80s and ’90s.
Along with New Wave, Techno-Primitive and Urban music came the hiring
of the station’s first full-time general manager, a move that
indicated the college’s commitment to WGLS. The station’s
long-ago freelance designer and then part-time radio faculty member,
Frank Hogan, was the natural choice in 1991. He developed an intensive
staff training program, and with Donovan’s help, wrote the station
manual, now in its eleventh edition. Recent years have seen the development
of a bona fide Radio/Television/Film department (for which WGLS is
a perfect complement), as well as continued community service and scores
of regional and national awards earned.
“After years of working with Donovan and the students, I knew WGLS had
great potential,” Hogan said. “And I had seen the administration’s
interest in the station’s success for many years. When I came full-time,
President Herman James continued that support and encouragement. He made a strong
statement about setting our standards high and modeled it with his own jazz show.
He was always prepared and thoughtful. We’re fortunate to have the same
enthusiastic support from President Farish, too.”
While Hogan credits others for the station’s progress, he has his own fan
club. “Frank’s a visionary,” says Jeff
Hickman ’95. “He’s
always wanted WGLS to be the quintessential commercial radio station, and it’s
become just that. If you listen to it now, it’s so crisp and professional.”
Measure of success
In fact, for years ’GLS insiders had measured themselves against other
stations and aspired to emulate them. “Everybody was imitating WMMR,” recalls
DiBona. “The Penn station, WXPN, was what everyone in college radio compared
themselves to. They were then what WGLS is now.”
“Then” and “now” have also played out in individuals’ lives.
Hickman appreciates how Hogan influences each student’s present and future. “He
was so supportive of me and my academic career, and is still supportive of me
now.”
Michele Fisher ’94 also respects the hands-on approach Hogan requires of
students. “With Frank at the helm,” she says, “there’s
no question about a Glassboro kid’s capabilities.”
In 1995 WGLS-FM moved to its current home in Bozorth Hall. Now using the logo
Rowan Radio, 89.7 FM, it has been named College Station of the Year by the National
Association of College Broadcasters. And though the glory days of Project Santa
are just a memory, Rowan Radio staffers under Hogan’s direction make sure
that social issues continue to be addressed. Award-winning documentaries like “Facing
the Facts: The Use and Abuse of Alcohol” have been produced. Talk shows
including “The Rowan Report” and “The African American Profile” can
be heard (and in better time slots than Saturday mornings from 6 to 10!).
In 2001, Rowan Radio’s antenna was relocated once again, this time to Harrison
Township, upping the power to 750 watts and resulting in a broadcast range of
35 miles. Beyond that, streaming audio makes it possible to hear WGLS world-wide,
24/7. Says Hogan, “We have a ‘cume’ of
14,000 per week, and with the Internet we reach 80,000–100,000 per month.
Some people are listening in China!”
Rowan Radio’s listeners in 2004 are on- and off-campus, they follow Rowan
sports, cultural events and tune into the station’s public forums with
political candidates. When it comes to music, the student staff revels in playing “oldies” for
them, from Motown to The Rolling Stones to REO Speedwagon. Remote equipment allows
the station to cover intercollegiate sports home and away as well as college
ceremonies on campus.
In spite of so much change and progress, some traditions have survived, including
the run of classical music, now featuring Rowan students and faculty in the Rowan
University Concert Series and broadcast of The Growth and Development of Jazz
with professor Douglas Mapp.
Forty years after its start, the station’s limited audiences and programming
are just part of history—not only for WGLS-FM, but for its students and
staff. The station started many students’ careers in broadcasting and communication,
drawing on talents and skills that still serve them today. Not all WGLS alums
went into radio careers, but they invariably consider their college days on the
air some of the best. Greg Potter sums it up well: “It was a magical time.
I had a ball!”
Postscript: WGLS alumni, faculty and friends gathered last month to celebrate
their four decades on the air. See our snapshots section for photos and e-mail
with your nominee for the new WGLS Hall of Fame
to be announced at the spring banquet.
______________________________
did adult contemporary and top 40
shifts at WGLS and top 40 countdown specials with Susan Hughes ’79. After
20 years at WWDB and WPEN, she owns The Word Source, LLC. She resides in Cherry
Hill with husband Stan, their son, Richard and daughter, Jardin.
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