Nikki Silva, one of the Peabody Award-winning radio producers of NPR’s The Keepers, Hidden Kitchen, and the Radiotopia podcast The Kitchen Sisters Present... will be teaching the popular Podcasting: Digital Storytelling (Crown 98) course this summer.
This 2-unit class introduces students to current trends in audio production, including lessons on sound gathering, interviewing scriptwriting, audio editing, and developing a ''radio voice,” and culminates in the production of a podcast. Students' podcasts can be based on any research project or subject that they want. In addition, the course fulfills the Creative Process (PR-C) general education requirement for UC Santa Cruz students.
Nada Mijkovic, the Crown lecturer and entrepreneur who originally developed the class and recruited Silva, said, “I am thrilled to see Nikki teach this class. In 2008, she was my first instructor in audio storytelling as part of the UCSC Social Documentary Masters Program. Many of my sources for the curriculum came from that class. It has gone full circle by going back to the source with Nikki taking over the class.”
A Porter College alumna, over the past twenty years, Silva has worked as history curator at the Museum of Art and History and as a freelance curator and exhibit consultant specializing in regional history. Having taught courses in documentary and creative radio production at The Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and for the UC Santa Cruz Social Documentation Program, Silva now brings her years of experience back to UCSC.
Silva’s the Kitchen Sisters received the 2019 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award from The Society of American Archivists and a lifetime achievement award from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. And most recently, the Library of Congress has acquired the entire archive of The Kitchen Sisters — some 7,000 hours of interviews, oral histories, and field recordings along with photographs, notebooks, and journals — and will house and preserve it in perpetuity.
“We’re ecstatic that Nikki will teach this summer, especially because the course is being offered online and is accessible to so many students,” said Monica Parikh, Director of Summer Session. “Over the summer, the unique offerings from our colleges are open to everyone.” Manel Camps, Provost of Crown, the college sponsoring the class, said, “I love the fact that Nikki is an alumna, that she is local, and that she is willing to share her amazing professional expertise; building bridges between academia and the community to the benefit of our students is that colleges are all about”
Over the summer, anyone can take classes at UC Santa Cruz. Newly admitted and visiting students must register to enroll. More information is available at summer.ucsc.edu.
Podcasting: Digital Storytelling (Crown 98)
Offered: Online/Remote
Session 1: June 20 - July 22
