Making History Heard: Bringing the Past to Life Through Podcasts

The opportunity then is to figure out how can those of us who exist in sort of this liminal space in between traditional and public help translate that high quality scholarship into something that makes for a compelling story. And so it's really thinking about who are the audiences we're trying to reach. Of course, with each show, we have very specific audiences in mind, but we'll take everyone who wants to come to the table.

Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn and get inspired. I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcast Company. And I'm Jennifer-Lee and the founder of JPod Creations. Podcasting is broadcasting. We want you to know you're not alone. In fact, there are many of you higher ed podcasters out there, and we can all learn from each other.

We are growing that community and we talk about it all the time, but we're growing that community on Higher Ed Pods, HigherEdPods.com. And we're inching towards getting a thousand podcasts in there. Today we are chatting with Jeanette Patrick and Jim Ambuske and they are with R2 Studios, which is a network of history podcasts. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to them. They've got a few great ones, which I wanna be an avid listener of.

Of course Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant, A Woman's History and Worlds Turn Upside Down. So we're gonna chat with them what it's like to create these podcasts because they're like full fledged research podcasts. They are historians. There's sound effects in them. They are really like a treat for the ears.

Yes. This is a great conversation because, and we've chatted with a few different networks as of late, but I like this, that it's a network that's all focused in on, on the humanities, but more so focused in on history. And so we get into talking a bit about how they've created this network, but also as Jen, you're saying the, you know, the specific podcast that they've created within. So with that said, why don't we jump in. Leave it to the experts. Let's chat to them.

Jeanette and Jim, it's so nice to have you here today. Thanks for joining us on Continuing Studies. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. So let's get into it. This is really exciting. R2 Studios, as your website says, explores history through podcasts. We tell unexpected stories based on the latest research to connect listeners with the past. Maybe just tell us a bit about the story behind the founding of R2 Studios.

R2 Studios was founded through a grant from the Mellon Foundation with the idea of finding ways to take quality scholarly research and translate it for a public audience through podcasting. And so we've been fortunate to make a series of series that we think really do that well.

Since then, we've been able to work with a lot of different scholars internal to the Roy Rosenzweig Center of History and new media at George Mason University, but also a number of great external scholars just to, again, help find ways to connect a very interested and excited public audience who wants really exciting and interesting stories about the past. But they're not gonna go read journal articles and they don't have the time to read the latest research.

But they like hearing these stories and they wanna learn more and dig deeper. Yeah. And it's keeping with the Rosenzweig Center's mission, which is 31 years old now, of using technology to democratize history. Our center was kind of at the forefront, really at the cusp of digital history, digital humanities in the early 1990s of figuring out how to as Roy Rosenzweig would say, put history on the web. And the podcast is the next iteration of that.

Podcasting technology emerged about 10 years after the Rosenzweig Center started. It really became a thing in terms of listenership in 2014 with series like Serial and whatnot taking off. But historians, although they are out there on podcasts, uh, and producing their own podcasts, not as much as we would like to think that they should or could.

And in this moment when we're facing all sorts of challenges in the humanities, when we have public audiences who may not have been history majors and thought history was boring, but have found history through other means in their adult life, that podcasting is a really critical way to educate them about the past and a very entertaining and hopefully compelling way.

Maybe I'm stereotyping here, but I'm wondering if, because there's not a lot of history-esque podcasts out there, do you think it's because some of the historians are maybe a little camera shy or maybe, you know, we always think that they've just got their nose in the book and they're studying, so maybe they just don't really want to speak about it. And that's why we see so many written forms. I think that's part of it.

I mean, and I'm, you know, Jeanette is properly trained as a public historian. I'm trained as a traditional historian with a digital humanities background, but I think that's a concrete part of it. In the academy setting, your audience is your peers and your peers expect a very specific form of writing that's not necessarily to inspire you to think about new ideas, but not exactly designed to move you emotionally or carry you along through a story. It's very analytical, it's very critical.

It's very steeped in historiography. You can do that in this mode, but you have to be willing to accept the fact that your audiences may be smaller. But the opportunity then is to figure out how can those of us who exist in sort of this liminal space in between traditional and public help translate that high quality scholarship into something that makes for a compelling story. And so it's really thinking about who are the audiences we're trying to reach.

And it's, we'd like to say the widest possible audiences. Of course, with each show we have very specific audiences in mind, but you know, we'll, we'll take everyone who wants to come to the table.

Love it. And when you're historians like yourselves, was this something you guys always wanted to be and get into or did you totally wanna do a different career path? I think I stumbled into history more. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the storytelling. It was a subject I always really liked, but I didn't initially start out majoring in history and it was kind of one of those, I missed those types of classes.

So I eventually found my way back into history classes and just really enjoyed them and wanted to continue pursuing it. And then it was the realization of like, you can't do anything with a bachelor's in history, so might as well continue on. But I think it was, I think that's most degrees. Right. Yes. And then the public side was more just the, I was never especially interested in writing anything incredibly long.

Like I did it when I needed to, but you know, I liked to find different ways to reach wider audiences and enjoyed those types of classes. And then internships and experiences outside of a traditional educational setting. And so, kind of how I ended up in public history. I fell into it by virtue of being hired at George Washington's Mount Vernon, where I actually first worked with Jeanette.

As you know, I was a traditionally trained historian with a background in digital history, digital humanities, but when I was hired to run the Center for Digital History at Mount Vernon, part of the gig was hosting a podcast that was then called Conversations at the Washington Library. I had no idea how to do that. I had to learn very quickly, and fortunately I was able to rely on previous teaching experience to think about how I was going to shepherd a guest through an interview.

And then from there, actually Jeanette and I developed a narrative series about the enslaved community at Mount Vernon called Intertwined that helped us think about what it would take to write narrative history podcasts. And then we ended up both at George Mason.

That's, that is I, I, I, I love the twists and turns there. My son is just going to University of Toronto and history, so we've been talking about the importance of a history degree and what he's gonna do with his history degree and everything. So, but I have really been personalized a little bit. I think podcasting has really helped me get into history more. I mean, obviously I live in a podcasting world, so I listen to a lot of podcasts.

But other than like the business podcasts and the podcasts about podcasting, which I listen to a lot of, I've really been drawn to history podcasts as of late, and there's more out there than you think actually. Jeanette, why do you think that podcasts are such a particularly powerful medium for engaging a, a wider audience with history? I think some of it is just the medium. I mean, people can listen to whatever they want, you know, wherever they are while they're doing other things.

But I think good history is all about really interesting stories and it's easy to think about how to turn the critical arguments into a story. And so I think that podcasting lets us think about a discipline that the general public doesn't understand as story focused and help them see that aspect of it. The, the good history podcasts don't harp on dates and facts and memorizing things.

They really wanna pull you in and show you the complexities and show you different players and help people just understand better what was happening. And, and there are many different ways to do that. We do it mostly through narrative, but also through some interview shows.

But I think the interview shows also allow scholars to do that by, you know, pulling out the most interesting people or events or moments and really dig into why they're interesting or, you know, those archival moments that are fun and that you discover something that no one else knew was there.

And so, you know, I think that that just, it allows people to see the aspect of the discipline, that I think is why a lot of historians end up in the discipline, that people just don't realize is such a key point to it.

So I'd love to just sort of dig in a little bit like, 'cause as our show, we're really talking to other podcasters in academia and in higher education. Maybe just sort of like, let's just, I'd like to drill a little bit on the network you've created because I think this is a really interesting thing for podcasters to sort of think about a network. Did R2 start out with this vision of we're going to be a network? I think there's seven podcasts as part of R2 Studios, if I have that right.

You started with a grant, as you mentioned, which is fantastic, but like was the vision always we're gonna create this network of podcasts, or did it start with one or two of those projects you mentioned and kind of just sort of turn into a network? Yeah. Vision was always a network. Abby Mullen created Consolation Prize as kind of a test case to see how could academic scholars create podcasts that were for a wider audience.

And through that series and learning how to make a, a show with a wider focus, we were able to then grow and build on that idea. And so from the beginning, the hope was that R2 Studios would be a network of series created by historians for a wider audience. I think our thought was that we're fortunate to work with a lot of great scholars who can tell just so many different types of stories to different types of audiences.

And from the start, we wanted to make something that was more than just our research center, putting out one series at a time, but really thinking about this network and how we could bring people in and have them listen to some of our shows and then broaden to others. Yeah, it's about creating an ecosystem.

Certain shows like the Humble Servant, Your Most Obedient Humble Servant, which is an interview type program and a few others we've got in the works in terms of the interview format, something like that we can conceivably produce at higher volume and then bring those listeners back into our ecosystem so that they can enjoy some of our more narrative shows, which take a lot longer time to produce.

So if, if we can kind of create a, a productive feedback loop between our series and, you know, strike partnerships or work collaboratively with colleagues, not only internally to our university, but elsewhere, then we can create relationships and networks that enhance our existing infrastructure. And offer our audiences a number of choices and selections that hopefully they can't get anywhere else.

And podcasting is a lot of work, regardless of whatever theme you're talking about or whatever topic you're talking about. But for you guys, because history, obviously you're always studying it, you're always researching it, but it, it takes long lengths to know what you guys are talking about and to make sure that you're credible. So how long does it take to put these podcasts on? Excellent question.

It varies by series, but to kinda give you a sense of World's Turned Upside Down, which is my primary series, between reading, doing research, finding some primary sources, interviewing scholars, sitting down and thinking about what we've recorded and what we want to achieve, and then actually writing a script and recording it. We're probably looking at a two month production time on an episode.

The thing I wanna stress though, is that this is not a series that I could have done 10 years ago, fresh out of graduate school. I mean, I, my primary focus is the American Revolution.

That was my PhD and so I had read a ton of books by that point, but the subsequent literature and the publications over the last 10 years have been so compelling and have really begun to reshape thinking about the revolution in pretty amazing ways, that in a lot of ways, it required this buildup time so that I could come to the table with this literature in my head and say, all right, here's the framing for this series. Here are what the episode themes are gonna be.

Here are the top people we want to talk to. Let's get after it. I think it would've been difficult to launch a series soon after I graduated, 'cause as well read as I was at that point, now I feel like I'm in a very good position to make a real contribution.

I don't think that enough people do their research before cracking the mic on. It doesn't necessarily have to be history related. It could be current events, it can just be fashion, it could be whatever we're talking about. You need to know what you're talking about. And everyone has this misconception that like, oh, if I'm prepped, I'm not gonna come off as like loose and like it's just gonna seem natural. And I'm like, no, no. That's how you seem natural.

Is it 'cause you know what you're talking about. So I would just feel that in history, two months. That feels like a lot of commitment to make sure that your episodes are solid. Yeah, it's, it's pretty intense and, you know, I'm stubborn and so I probably don't help myself sometimes, where I'm like, I must read one more book, or we must interview one more person. But again, I think, as I said earlier, it could not have happened a few years ago.

And I, I come at this series very different, I think, than a lot of other historians of the American Revolution might have. In my case here, I'm less interested in the independence of the United States than I am in the collapse of British America, which transforms not only people and what becomes the United States, but of course up in Canada where some of you are now. And that makes our history intrinsically and inevitably linked.

And so we have to think about what were the consequences for that imperial crisis that not necessarily created just one country, but several in a very real sense. I, I gotta say, I have started listening to the World's Turned Upside Down podcast and, um, a couple episodes into it. I'm really enjoying it, and I can understand how it is so time consuming. We'll put the link to everything in our show notes just for people listening. But there's a lot of sound engineering there.

There's not just narration, there's sound effects and music and really good storytelling, but it's super interesting to hear your background take on it as well, like just what you've said. I just find that really interesting, that overarching narrative that you've just provided. Well, thank you very much.

Yeah, and I'm curious because with history, obviously there's a lot of research in it, but some people might think they know better than you. Do you guys ever get comments challenging what you're talking about or people adding to the conversation, maybe some tidbits that you didn't know or you missed or left out? Occasionally, particularly on YouTube, it seems, and usually it comes down to my pronunciation with certain words. Sometimes I will just bungle an indigenous name or place name.

Not intentionally, but sometimes I just don't get it right. Somebody was critical of the way I said Tobago versus Tobago in one of the episodes. But we work really hard to ensure that what we produce meets muster with our peers in the academy, so that when we do the storytelling aspects of it, it will be correct and consistent with the best interpretations, but also then compelling.

And, you know, Jeanette plays a critical role in this because sometimes my scripts can get very long as if you've looked at the timestamps for Worlds on the episode lengths, and so she's always very good about, all right, we need to cut the fat, this is ridiculous. You can't say it this way. Is there a source for this? So it's really good to have that feedback loop with each other to ensure that we're really doing our due diligence.

Who do you see as your ideal audience? You did say a while back that you've got a wider audience, but who is that ideal audience? And maybe just sort of second part of that is have you been surprised at all by who is actually tuning in? Anything that sort of surprises you there? Yeah. I think the ideal audience varies for each of our series.

They are similar in style, but we know that one of our series, The Green Tunnel, which is a history of the Appalachian Trail and the target audience was for people who really enjoyed their hobby of hiking and spending time outdoors and wanted to learn more about the history of their leisure activity.

And so for that series it was thinking about what topics and I would bring them into the series, and how could we hook that audience, who maybe wouldn't describe themselves as history lovers, but did in fact want to learn more about how they spend their free time or the locations that they're in.

With series like Worlds Turned Upside Down and Your Most Obedient Humble Servant or Antisemitism USA, I think we were thinking of a slightly different audience in that we were thinking about people who were interested in learning more about the history of our country or a specific aspect of that history.

And people who would describe themselves as in their free time wanting to go to museums or historic sites and who just really wanted to better understand these different moments in our past or how they're interrelated. And like learning new things as part of their leisure activity. And so they're the people who wanna listen to a history show while walking the dog or doing the dishes.

I think what surprised us the most about the World's audience is we've gotten a number of comments from people who talk about listening with their children, and I think that that's not something we were expecting because, you know, it is a, it's a very violent series. There's a lot of death in most episodes because it was a bloody time in our country's history. It's not something that I think we thought would be a family activity.

So that has been really fun to hear people talk about, you know, excited to listen with and we suspect they're older children, but I think that's what surprised us the most about like comments from the World's audience.

I do like what you said about the audience and there's different audiences. And then if I go back to what you were saying about the network, and that network effect is you may pull someone in through one podcast, they're exposed to other ones and you can really sort of cross pollinate, open up that audience and like obviously that's part of your strategy there. That you've got different shows, different audiences, but there's that cross pollination if you will.

And I think that's a really interesting strategy that you're employing. Yeah. And it's fun to see how people who were listening to The Green Tunnel engage with some of our other shows. 'Cause that is a very different audience than a lot of the people who listen to Worlds or Humble Servant or Antisemitism USA. It's an opportunity, right? You're not gonna capture 50% of one show on another show, but if you get 10% who are like, oh, this is interesting.

Let's give this a try, then we've done our job in a sense. We've exposed them to a different aspect of history they may not have considered before. I think this is the power of networks and thinking about this way, and we talk about this with a lot of higher education podcasters, is we'll come across or we work with, you know, one podcast in one school and we're trying to encourage them to think about, you know, rising tides lifts all boats.

Like just 'cause you're in the law school doesn't mean you can't engage with this great podcast coming out of the school of engineering kind of a thing. And R2 Studios is focused on, is more tightly focused on history. But I think there's something here for all of us higher education podcasters to think about this network effect and pulling someone in through one introduces you to these other podcasts.

Well, you're absolutely right, and what you're describing is a very university thing to do, which six different departments or divisions are all starting kind of the same methodology or same project or a podcast. And, you know, at Mason we're very fortunate to have an internal recording studio, but we could walk to the library, there's a sound booth there. There's, in the student center, there's actually two I think, and then in the new Arlington campus they have built another one.

And it's just what universities do, right? The parts are so big they don't talk to each other. And there are some attempts at coordination, but you know, it would be to the university's benefit to kind of have these all under one umbrella or at least a centralized place. So if somebody was interested in the University of British Columbia or George Mason University, they could go to that place and see what's what on campus or what people are doing on campus and producing.

And I think we've seen this a lot with the commercialized networks. I mean, that is how you see these large studios, some as big as Wondery, but then there are smaller ones that have slightly more niche topicality, but they're using the network method to do, which is what you've described, to funnel people in and get them interested in one show and then expose them to all of the other connected shows.

And so I think that's something that we've also been trying to pay attention to is who is being commercially successful. And even though, you know, we have a different mission than those organizations, how can we think about using those strategies with R2 Studios? That's smart.

Because I think sometimes, you're right, there's a different mission for, you know, there's a different reason for podcasting than a monetized podcast per se, but it doesn't mean that we can't look to those commercial monetized podcast networks for learnings and to apply those learnings in the academic world as well.

I also feel like there's missed opportunities sometimes with these universities that maybe don't realize there is networks or there's other podcasts out there that if you have the right topic or you are able to bring people on why don't we do cross-promotion to help everybody? Yeah, and it's funny too, it's particularly an issue in the humanities where there's this idea, well, we have contributed to the knowledge of humanity and we will not talk about it because that would be bragging.

And it's like, you know, if you're fans of the, of Boiler Room, which was sort of my generation's Wall Street, one of the big lessons from that is A, B, C. Right? Always be closing. Like you've gotta get out there and, and sell your stuff and with it in a very strategic way.

And I think it's in this moment as, as we've been sort of talking about when the humanities are in question, when universities themselves are in question, I think it's incumbent on us to do as much as we can to talk about the work and the value we bring to society. And this is a really great medium to do that. And why should we spend so much time and effort on these projects if we're not gonna tell people about them so that they can listen to them?

It's not even like thinking about like, oh, we're bragging about, no. It's like we did this so people can listen. Let's tell people so that they do listen.

Yeah. You're completely right. You're totally right. So I'm just gonna switch gears a little bit here. I think one of the things that we come across or hear is when launching things, getting things up and going, is that initial funding. And I think unfortunately we're gonna start to see more of that I think in the coming months in the academic world with sort of the political climate right now.

But how did the, just sort of recognizing the fact that it's other podcasters listening to this and what we can learn, but is there anything you can share about that initial grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation? And how that helped get things up off the ground. And does that help fund ongoing? Is there sort of anything there you can share with us from a support and funding perspective?

I think you'd mentioned something else as well, Jim, about that, but maybe you could help unpack that for other podcasters in higher education trying to figure out how to fund things. You know, we were fortunate to receive a grant from the Mellon Foundation that allowed us to establish both of our positions. But part of that was thinking creatively about how to continue funding the studio.

And so a lot of it has been thinking about this commercialized model and you know, just figuring out like, institutionally, how can we set up, you know, some sort of like Patreon or something like that. And so thinking about like as part of a history department. You know, membership is not a thing. And so it's been, you know, spending a lot of time thinking about how to create standard commercial podcasting processes inside a university setting.

And some we've been successful with and others like George Mason University is a state school. And so there are just some like weird hoops we've not been able to jump through no matter how many times in different ways we've tried. And so, you know, we are still heavily reliant on grant funding and philanthropic gifts as a studio. And so I don't think we have cracked how to, you know, how to really do this on that side of things. Yeah, it's tough. The Mellon funding was instrumental seed funding.

We were very fortunate to win an NEH grant for Worlds Turned Upside Down and secure some philanthropic funding for Antisemitism USA and also another grant for that as well. But as we're recording this, in April of 2025, things have gone south with the federal government in the United States and the NEH is under siege.

You know, the NEH has long been a generous partner for many universities to fund projects like these, and we were already kind of thinking about how to change the revenue mix or the income mix, so to speak, through other income opportunities, other grants, other forms of revenue like ads and things like that. But the recent changes has complicated those efforts.

What we have to do, at least from our part, but I think also less applicable to others is, even before the recent crisis, we need to do a better job of communicating that what we are doing is not free to make. It's free to consume. History delivered right to your ears. But that takes a lot of effort and there are very good podcasts that people do is on the side for fun.

But we want to be out there in the forefront of leading the charge for really good, intellectually rigorous, yet accessible history podcasts and that takes a chunk of change. And so I think part of the strategy going forward is really to communicate more seriously with prospective donors and supporters that between $5 and $5 million is very helpful and we will take all of that in whatever currency you wish to send it to us.

So kind of an NPR model almost is what you're envisioning when you're saying that? Absolutely. And helping people understand the amount of work and effort that goes into creating these series. 'Cause they do take a lot of work and we enjoy doing it, but we also enjoy getting paid. Yeah. Funny you how that works.

Yeah. I think universities are starting to get smarter and they're realizing that these are a lot of work and either they outsource some of the production limits to people like Neil and I. And then have you guys come in. Or some of them are adding the jobs on to people that already have them and either upping their pay. Or that we've seen in cases where they will hire somebody that specifically their role is the podcast like Kate at Purdue.

That is her role as a podcast person for the universities. I come from broadcasting. It's similar. People don't realize the value in it and a lot of people, it's like, oh, can you not do this for us for free? It's easy and it's not easy and it's a lot of work and it's obviously pays off in so much for the university. So that being said, what are some of the success that you've seen, obviously besides getting donations, what are some of the other successes you've seen with the podcast?

Well, in terms of non-financial success, I will just say, so I'm a native mid-Westerner. And our, our goal as Midwesterners is to hide and never be seen. And so it's profoundly confusing to me when people come up to me at a conference or in a public forum and as one person did at a conference in France of all places, she said, you're that podcast guy. And I was like, yes, I am. So it's, it's been very rewarding to get the approbation of our peers.

Even if they don't necessarily agree with the interpretation sometimes. And that's, you know, we're in that business of, of arguing over what actually happened in the past. It's been really gratifying to hear some of their compliments, particularly from people that I respect and would tell us if we were doing something that was trash. But also from the general public, you know, just things like, I hadn't considered Jamaica as part of British America before.

That's something that's, that is standard for historians of the American Revolution, but to get people to see beyond the 13 colonies and to see the 26 I think is rewarding. And the same with the other series as well. Um, Jeanette's got a number of stories.

Yeah, I think the audience reaction is always, the thing that I find most rewarding is just, you know, with our series, Your Most Obedient Humble Servant, in each episode, our host Kathryn Gehred and a guest do a deep dive into one primary source. And so it's often a letter between two women in the 18th century. Frequently it's between sisters.

And so it's just so fun to listen to people talk about the series who are not historians who didn't really find history class as fun or interesting, but they enjoy the series because it's just, it's a deep dive into these personal correspondence. And they talk about important things, but then they complain about their parents or their spouses or their children. And so it's just, it's fun to hear people understand how much scholars get out of reading dead people's mail.

Helping people see how historians do their work has been really rewarding. And how sometimes we get to put scholars who don't agree with each other in conversation with each other in episodes and just help people kinda understand that, yeah, we're in the business of arguing over what happened. And it's okay when we don't agree and we can still think about the complexities of the past and draw conclusions.

So yeah, I think helping people kind of understand the discipline has been really rewarding.

That's great. Well, thank you so much for your time. I was thinking one last question was maybe just sort of looking ahead the next couple of years, like what's up next for R2 Studios? More shows? You're gonna try new formats? What are you guys thinking as the road ahead? That's a good question. We have too many ideas, is the answer. Yes. What isn't on the horizon at this point? That's right. So ideally, Worlds Turned Upside Down will have five seasons. We're almost done with season one.

That'll take us through the end of the Revolutionary War, and we have at least one more season we hope to make with Your Most Obedient Humble Servant where I think we're gonna dive into letters that specifically look at parental relationships and children in the 18th century. We have a couple of other shows that we're excited to make and that hopefully we'll get to bring to people's ears soon.

Yep. A few things on the horizon, but you know, Finding Jane Austen, we've announced and so that's out there. That'll be out later this year, starting later this year with our colleague Anne Fertig. A few things out there that you'll just have to stay tuned for. It's exciting. Love it. Yeah. Jen and I have been doing this for a couple of years now the Continuing Studies podcast, we're coming up on our 50th episode, and it's like peeling an onion.

Like the more that we dig into this world of higher education podcasting, the more we find really amazing podcasts and networks like R2 Studios. It's just incredible what's out there. And how it's really, I mean, the challenge of podcasting is the discovery side, and I just think more and more if we can surface some of this amazing work that's being done in academia.

And the way I've been looking at it lately is it's a way to break through the rhetoric and just to give a direct voice, if you will, for that's happening on campuses and the academia and the work and podcasting is just such a great medium for it. So congratulations on what you guys have created so far, and you got a new, you got at least one listener here. But thanks for joining us today and thanks for sharing your journey and all the amazing work that you're doing. I. Yeah. Thank you guys.

I love the fact that you guys are making history more accessible because you guys do all this great work, but back in the day, only so many people would read it. Now you're able to expand the stuff that we maybe would not know. Now we get to engage with it and hear things that are really intriguing that we wouldn't know about unless they were super significant that they would be brought to light on the news. So thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, that was great. What a really interesting conversation we had with Jeanette and Jim. I quite enjoyed that conversation and learning more about R2 Studios. And just so honest and candid specifically towards the end, they are putting a lot of work in it and they do need funding and I think sometimes we don't get enough attention of why these things need funding.

Everyone just thinks, oh, they're like something fun or they're easy to do, but there's a lot of work that goes, so I love that they were so candid about it. Yeah, I think it's really important conversation to have right now. As Jim mentioned when we were recording, this is April of 2025 and yesterday was when we just heard that Harvard really pushed back and they're, you know, in theory they're turning their backs on $2 billion worth of research funding.

It is just incredible times we're in that if you think that the funding for all this great research is going to it's just gonna go away or it's gonna be, try to be controlled in a different way. It's a really shocking time we're in. So I, I, I agree, jen. It was great that they were candid sort of about their funding and I think that's gonna be a challenge overall, but I think we're gonna start to see this in the podcasting space as well too. No, I agree.

I think it's something we all have to be mindful of and it's interesting time and we're gonna have to figure out different ways to get through it. Thank you for tuning into the Continuing Studies podcast, a podcast for higher education podcasters. We hope you found this episode informative and inspiring. If you enjoyed the show, we encourage you to follow and subscribe to our podcast on your preferred platform, so you'll never miss an episode.

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