KPSU Community Spaces

The most obvious place where KPSU Radio community members gather is the station itself, in the sub-basement of Smith Memorial Student Union at Portland State University. Anyone who walks into the station (or rather, rings the bell at the locked lobby door) will run into or be greeted by members of the KPSU community, at least if it’s between 10 am and midnight on any day of the week. That’s not to say that several members are ever in the space at the same time. Often only 2 or 3 DJ’s will be in the lobby at a time, with one doing a show, one having just finished their show, and another preparing to go on the air for the next hour, since DJ’s are required to arrive 30 minutes before the start of their show each week. Even if we don’t always see one another here, we’re all familiar with the equipment there, and the staff members who are often stationed there during their office hours during the week. Because this where our radio programming is produced, it’s an extremely important place to the community.

DJ Megan Stahl (a.k.a. me) showing some love to one of many drawers full of CDs at the station

At monthly all-station meetings, new volunteers are welcomed, important issues are discussed and announcements made, and most importantly, everyone in the community is brought up to speed, leaving on more or less the same page. All-station meetings occur twice a month, usually during the same week. One will be on Wednesday, and another on Sunday, to allow for people with varying schedules to be able to make at least one, hopefully. These meetings are held in a meeting room in Smith Memorial Student Union, and are very important places for community members to gather all at once, strengthening the sense of the community itself, along with reciprocity and loyalty to the station.

A third gathering place for the KPSU community is a virtual one: the KPSU website. Here we house the weekly schedule of radio shows, email addresses of staff members, log the playlists of music we played on our show (thereby informing the music director, who is in charge of submitting the charts of airplay for certain albums at the station). We are also able to listen to another’s shows, either live or by downloading them as podcasts. All of these actions strengthen the community, and without the internet, our listenership would suffer significantly, not to mention knowledge and details about our community would be fuzzy. We all use the website weekly, if not daily, and it’s very important to both community members and supporters of the station in the community and around the world!

the KPSU website

I believe these places are vital to our community, and will remain the same. If we were to lose our number one place, the station itself, the station would cease to exist. I’m guessing if the station were somehow destroyed, the members of our community wouldn’t simply give up. We’d stick together, and try to slowly rebuild our station, finding a new place to broadcast from and whatever new equipment we could muster, perhaps from donations or personal resources. If we lost the meeting room, we could simply find another one, or even just meet outside at the park blocks. Losing the website would affect the community a lot, since without a far-reaching signal, there’s no other way to listen to the station besides online. Without the website, we’d be irrelevant and intangible, less promotable, and not reputable.