“You’re listening to WOZQ 91.9 FM Smith College Radio broadcasting from Northampton, Massachusetts!”
Every hour, on the hour, some variation of this comes across the airwaves, as dozens of DJs flock to the bottom floor of the Julia Child Campus Center to broadcast everything from talk shows to indie rock jams to the Pioneer Valley.
At the start of every semester, the WOZQ Executive Board opens up applications to host a show to the entire student body. In the 2023–2024 school year, the station received a record number of applications, with over 130 Smithies vying for a weekly hour (or two) slot behind the booth’s microphones this spring.
In addition to their student-run broadcasting, WOZQ also hosts numerous events, including their fall and spring concerts, and produces a semesterly zine, “DIRT.” The organization also boasts several “Party DJs” who are hired out to play music for events across Smith campus. Most recently, Smithies enjoyed the work of a party DJ at the archives’ “Special Connections in Special Collections” Valentine’s Day event.
While today WOZQ is one of the largest organizations on campus and a haven for creative expression, radio at Smith did not always look like this.
In 1924, when residential Smith students had a strict 10:00 p.m. curfew, the first radios arrived on campus. Students could stay up as late as 11:30 p.m. listening to music from Pittsburgh, Springfield or New York in their rooms.
It was not until 1947 when the quest for student-led radio at Smith began. Marjorie Boselly ‘48 researched extensively on how to bring radio to campus throughout the fall of 1947 and organized the first “Radio Club” meeting that December. The board strived for student-led programming “since commercial radio fails to meet the student’s needs,” and a space “to gain practical experience in the field of radio.”
Radio Club continued to meet throughout the remainder of the fall 1947 semester and into the spring, listening to lectures on radio, advertising and working with other college radio stations, all while attempting to obtain their own licensing, equipment and funding.
The club, however, faced backlash from administration. The club was told by the college president and student government that starting a student radio station was “out of the question.” This barrier, coupled with a lack of funding and issues obtaining equipment, halted the station’s creation until October of 1948, over a year after Boselly’s initiative began.
From a small garage owned by the college, WCSR’s first broadcast occurred on Jan. 6, 1948, on the same power lines as the central heating system. Only transmittable within the borders of campus, WCSR was live five nights a week for students and faculty to enjoy the “good music, drama, and news” of Smith students.
As WCSR grew in popularity, the station joined with Amherst College’s WAMF and UMass’s WMUA in 1950 to create the first intercollegiate radio network in the United States. The station also exchanged tapes with Princeton’s radio station, and interacted regularly with MIT, Dartmouth and Yale’s stations, going on to sponsor the first intercollegiate radio conference in the eastern United States.
Board members’ hopes remained high for the future of radio, but excitement was put on hold when the WCSR garage was torn down in 1956. Student-run radio at Smith seemed to be over for good.
The 1970s ushered in a renewed interest in radio at Smith, as students felt that radio could provide a space to bring students together and express opinions and provide meaningful entertainment for students. Thus, in 1977, the station was reborn.
Created to be the “voice of Smith College,” the station broadcasted to houses and college buildings with access to radio. This did not prove to be enough for the station’s board however, as they quickly applied to receive their FM license, hoping to spread their music and communicate with the wider Northampton community.
1982 saw the official birth of WOZQ at 91.9 FM, arriving just as college radio was becoming more important to emerging alternative music markets. WOZQ continued the Smith radio tradition of providing a space for students to explore their creative interests, quickly growing the club to sustain 24/7 broadcasting.
As the club grew, it expanded its reach to other media with the creation of DIRT zine in the 1988–1989 school year. With the zine, DJs could share music interests, interviews with musicians and even political statements outside of the guidelines of the Federal Communications Commission.
For nearly 75 years, Smith students have used student-run radio to connect their creative interests with their broader campus and town communities. Despite the many hurdles Smith DJs have had to overcome, WOZQ remains one of the largest, most involved organizations on campus, and the creative epicenter of Smith’s extracurricular life.
