Four years go by pretty fast.
College students certainly know that. It seems like yesterday they were dropped off by family members on campus, away from home for the first extended time.
Student-led media organizations probably feel the velocity of change more than most.
I became intertwined with Villanova University’s 89.1 WXVU(FM) as a nontraditional student — in my 30s, mind you — in 2019, when the station’s advisor at the time, Deena Leh, came and spoke with my audio production class. It rekindled my love for radio — and smooth jazz, to the dismay of the students subjected to our automation — and it is a large reason I am doing what I do today for Radio World.
As many institutions of higher learning hold their graduations this month, I thought I’d reflect on four members of Villanova’s graduating class I had the great privilege of watching with a front-row seat, from four years ago as freshmen when they each became involved with the station, up until today.
Cat Coyle works in Villanova’s office of student involvement, which consists of approximately 250 student organizations, including WXVU. Coyle is the assistant director of student media programs, and she advises WXVU, along with The Villanovan, the student newspaper, and the school’s other media organizations.
Every staff is different, Coyle said, and each year itself brings a set of challenges.
“When you work with students, you know from the start that you only have four years with them, so institutional memory is always limited,” she said.
Checkered past
Today, I help advise the station on technical matters, and I also work with Dr. Carol Weingarten’s nursing students to help them produce public service announcements that are noncommercial-compliant and ready for the airwaves.
Radio itself has a long history at Villanova, dating back to the 1920s as a radio club, which the school’s Falvey Library profiled.
Alums from the 1960s and 1970s like Joe Gallagher, from the station’s carrier-current days as “WKVU,” still get together faithfully on campus every June.
There are many stories — Gallagher once recounted when the banana was stolen off WFIL(AM)’s station car during its appearance on Villanova’s campus. It is still talked about around Villanova’s “quad.”
The university would secure an FCC license in 1992 and the 100-watt WXVU was born through a timeshare agreement with Cabrini University’s WYBF(FM). WXVU had its broadcast share on Tuesday, Thursdays, Saturdays and half of Sunday.
But even with the license, the station has not always been a well-known part of the campus on Philadelphia’s suburban Main Line. More than once after I became involved, I heard the always deflating response: “We have a radio station at Villanova?”
The year 2022, in particular, was pivotal. If not for the support and efforts of Leh and Dr. Weingarten — the university was quite close to selling its share of the license timeshare, in the footsteps of other colleges.
Instead, in a remarkable turnaround, that August, Villanova bought the Cabrini part of the timeshare to go full-time on 89.1 FM.
We were coming out of the pandemic, and many members of the student staff were slated to graduate in 2023.
The license was in place, but would there be students to lead the way?
Michigan made
In the fall of 2022, MK Coolican arrived as a freshman from Ann Arbor, Mich. She grew up in a household where 91.7 WUOM(FM), Michigan Public Radio, was always present, either in the car or within various rooms in her home.
“All Things Considered, 1A and Car Talk were some of my earliest radio memories,” Coolican reflected.
She struggled to find her niche in high school, as so many, including myself, did, but music helped manage her way through.
Coolican picked up the guitar at the age of 8, and while in high school, she learned two songs that stuck with her: “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman and “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles.
“From that point forward, classic hits and classic rock became a part of who I was,” she said.
In her first semester at Villanova, Coolican joined the school’s rowing team. One of her teammates, Anna Flynn, hosted a WXVU show.
At Flynn’s urging, Coolican applied for a show slot, and that gave birth to “Tune Town,” her weekly classic hits and classic rock-laden program.
I remember being blown away after hearing Sting’s “Englishman in New York,” a most unlikely WXVU selection, on one of Coolican’s 2022 programs. It was a reflection of her vast music knowledge.
She was able to parlay it into our popular “Swinging Fridays” block program, featuring standards from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald. The library derived from her hand-picked playlist, with special input from an elder fellow Michigan YMCA member.
Sometimes it’s about being at the right place at the right time, and many of the student leadership members for WXVU were about to graduate after the 2022–23 year. On the approximately nine-member student leadership board, one of the positions that was opening was music director.
Coolican applied for it, earned the role, and she would remain as station leader from then onward, rising to station manager her junior year.
“MK has been an incredible creative force at WXVU,” Coyle said. “One of the biggest things she has spearheaded is a complete physical transformation of the radio station space on campus.”
A complete redesign of the studio came in 2024, with each ceiling tile representing a different show, a wall collage celebrating Villanova and WXVU history and seating that was much more inviting.
Coolican’s love of vinyl — cultivated during her high school years — has become a WXVU fixture, during her show and several others, and it has resulted in the station’s now-annual Vinylthon participation.
Moreover — and I can reflect on this from my own observations — so many initiatives that used to be driven at the advisor level, such as recruiting new members, bringing projects to the student board and connecting with members of the community outside the school, Coolican has commanded.
She recruited Grant Kuppinger, a fellow graduate this year, to the station’s leadership board as editorial director, and he revamped WXVU’s website blog presence.
“I often call WXVU my baby,” Coolican reflected, “and my role as a station manager never felt like a job because it is my passion.”
The sports czar
Sports is a way of life at Villanova. That’s just a byproduct of two national championship wins and four overall Final Four appearances under former men’s basketball coach Jay Wright, not to mention football program graduates like former Philadelphia Eagles’ running back Brian Westbrook.
Yet, coverage of Villanova sports on WXVU had been scattered in its history, again, attributable to the change in groups of students.
There’d be a handful of men’s basketball games each year broadcast, and perhaps some football, often when it was convenient. Consequently, when it came to being credentialed for covering sports games — a necessity in a conference like the Big East — Villanova student radio was way down the list.
As a result, it’s hard to quite succinctly describe the efforts of David Szczepanski, who also arrived at Villanova in the fall of 2022.
During his junior year of high school at Holy Ghost Prep in Bensalem, Pa., with attendance restrictions still as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Szczepanski’s principal, Kevin Burke, was recruiting a student to broadcast the school’s basketball games.
He recounted sprinting to Burke’s office. “I fell in love with broadcasting from there,” Szczepanski recounted.
A die-hard Philadelphia Phillies’ fan, the Philadelphia native remembered being captivated as a young child by the final years of legendary play-by-play voice Harry Kalas. Szczepanski dreamed one day to be behind the mic for his favorite team.
Again, right place, right time, WXVU’s football broadcast crew was recreated from the ground up in fall 2022.
Szczepanski would call the Villanova football opener against Lehigh, alongside Patrick Scanlon and Dominic Richetti — with the trio using one Blue Yeti microphone between them to call the entire contest.
Most meticulous, Szczepanski remembered taking notes as soon as he found out he received the assignment — and he sought every opportunity to broadcast a WXVU game thereafter.
Szczepanski would go on that year to call Villanova’s appearance in the Big East men’s basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden — the first time in as long as anyone could remember that the station assembled a broadcast crew at MSG — alongside Richetti and Stephen Cain.
His favorite memory, being Philly through and through, was to call a game at the iconic Palestra.
“What stands out most about David is his consistency and work ethic,” Coyle said. “He approaches broadcasting with an incredible level of professionalism and preparation.”
He became sports director for WXVU in 2023–24, and from that point forward, every Villanova home men’s and women’s basketball and football game would be broadcast, with Szczepanski anchoring coverage.
Additional strides — such as adding a broadcast crew for men’s lacrosse — were made under his leadership.
And yes, the Blue Yeti mic evolved into two separate broadcast kits, as the station had to contemplate covering multiple games on the same day, an entirely foreign concept.
He culminated it this year, as Szczepanski made the trip out to San Diego to call the men’s basketball appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
But the mere game calls understate what Szczepanski has meant to the station, being the best presence it could ask for when interviewing coaches, players and other campus members, and he never deemed an assignment unworthy.
He managed it all driving from the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia via the Schuylkill Expressway to the Main Line each day — commuter students are unheard of on Villanova’s campus.
“What makes Villanova special is the people,” Szczepanski reflected. “I have had the privileges of talking to so many ‘Nova alumni and fans, and those conversations are moments I will remember the rest of my life.”
I’ve had a chance to get to know Szczepanski very well, and wise beyond his years, I believe the sky’s the limit for him.
Moreover, though some years separate us, I feel like we will be lifelong friends, sharing the highs and lows together of the industry that we, against our better judgment, both call our own.
St. Joe’s Prep-made
Stephen Cain joined the WXVU sports broadcasting crew about a week after Szczepanski did.
At his high school, St. Joseph’s Preparatory school in Philadelphia, for all four years, he was part of its sports broadcast team at WSJP. He used the preparation to host pre- and post-game shows his freshman year for WXVU football and basketball games.
He would join Szczepanski for nearly all of our broadcasts as a color commentator thereafter and Cain became a bedrock of the station’s coverage.
“It is different at Villanova,” Cain reflected. “The student base is passionate about all things Wildcats in terms of athletics, and it rubs off on me when I am calling a game.”
His favorite memory came after having his wisdom teeth pulled out two days before calling a Villanova-DePaul women’s basketball game in 2024 — the regular season finale.
“I remember receiving a compliment from a listener whose only way of following the game was our coverage on WXVU,” Cain reflected, “and that meant a whole lot to me.”
Szczepanski and Cain would never would see the men’s basketball team reach the heights Villanova classes during the mid- and late-2010s witnessed thanks to the likes of Wright, Jalen Brunson, Kris Jenkins and company.
Instead, they were able to redefine the station’s reputation, calling more games than a crew ever has for WXVU together.
A weekly apex
On a station like WXVU, student shows make up its fabric. This past semester, the station had 35 different 90-minute offerings.
Avery Stout landed a show in fall 2022 around the time Coolican also came aboard.
Stout hails from San Francisco, and she recalled car rides with her mother listening to 97.3 KLLC(FM). It was their routine — mom would drive, and the radio, during Justin Bieber’s pop music peak, was the soundtrack.
“When I first got to Villanova, I wanted to find some sort of creative outlet that had to do with music,” she reflected.
Known for its school of business, Stout wondered if there would be something friendly to her tastes on campus. It would end up being WXVU. Through music from artists like Lana Del Rey, she felt a connection every time she would put together a playlist.
“I stuck with my show all four years because it was the highlight of my week,” she reflected.
Her show, “The House,” encompassed many different genres that she said was the culmination of going to school in inner-city San Francisco and her exposure to many different styles and sounds.
Stout would join the leadership board and become WXVU’s promotions director, highlighted by a live music festival the station put on in spring 2025.
Radio lives on
At least two of the four Villanova graduates aspire to stay in radio.
Coolican hopes to land in public media, or a broadcast space that aligns with her passions for advocacy and social justice. With a sage outlook on life, she is a double major in political science and theology.
Szczepanski is a communications major with a journalism focus, and he desires opportunities to call play-by-play in the sports broadcasting space.
Cain will graduate from Villanova’s school of business and he said that, although he looks for work in the accounting or data analytics aisles, he believes his time on the air taught him lifelong lessons for communicating to a wide audience.
Stout is a communications major with a public relations focus, and she seeks opportunities in the music industry on the business side and feels that radio made her realize working in music could be a true career path.
Each of the four said that even though streaming dominates, radio does have a place with their own generation.
“While the ways people consume it may have changed, radio allows people to connect and make memories, whether it is music, sports talk or a morning news program,” Szczepanski said.
Now, these WXVU student leaders will head off, and the cycle will churn again. In a testament to the diverse group of students the station attracts, its inbound station manager, rising sophomore Mitchell Dalesio, is a nursing major.
Coolican hopes that as she walks away as station manager, the efforts of the departing students will demonstrate to the campus just how relevant radio is.
If the current generation is an indication of the future, Coyle, the advisor, believes that the medium is in good hands.
“What stands out most to me is how engaged and thoughtful these students are,” she said. “They care deeply about music, storytelling, sports, culture, politics and their community, and they use radio to connect people.
“I feel very lucky that part of my job is getting to spend time with them each week and learning from them along the way,” Coyle said.
I couldn’t agree more.
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