The student-run radio station, KSDJ, welcomes a new show to the weekly programming: the KV show.

This show will focus on dialoguing about topics related to diversity including, but not limited to, buzz words and answering questions listeners have.

 Virginia James, coordinator for conflict prevention, and Kas Williams, program adviser for the African American programs, were inspired to start the radio show after they had weekly meetings that lasted 15 minutes, which eventually turned into an hour or longer meetings. 

“We would talk about diversity issues so we started talking about possibly doing a podcast or something. Then Virginia had a good idea,” Williams said. “Instead of a podcast let’s start a radio station and basically let people into the conversations we had.”

 The two women work in different areas of South Dakota State University, but they both realized their passion for diversity and wanted to spread the conversations they were having to more people.

 James liked the idea of a radio show because it allowed listeners to be in their own homes but open themselves to hearing something they had never heard before.

 “There is an ease factor and if someone wants to call in, ask a question … it’s a less threatening way to talk about diversity and dialogue,” James said. 

James and Williams collaborated with the KSDJ station manager, Bobbi Egeberg. She is a fifth-year senior advertising major.

 Egeberg wanted to add the radio show about diversity because it contributed something different to the station other than music.

 “It’s really cool to have somebody come up with something that would be completely different than anything that’s already on there,” she said. “Diversity is very important and there has been so much going on in the news with like the way diversity has been moving in culture in the U.S. and everywhere.”

 KSDJ’s focus is music, Egeberg said, but it is also an avenue for students to express their ideas and opinions.

 The style of the KV show is a talk radio show. Williams and James will primarily be talking and not playing a lot of music. This type of show is a first for the radio station and the station is a first for the radio personalities.

 Williams said starting this show was “like going from the stone-age to the Jetsons” due to their unfamiliarity with how a radio station works.

 Aside from becoming more comfortable with the technology, the goal for Williams is to talk more openly about diversity.

“[We] by no means claim that we are the experts in that area, but what we have found out and we have learned is that the more we talk about this subject the less difficult it is to talk about this subject,” she said.

 Even though the duo had their first show on Jan. 29, they have many ideas of how to incorporate the show into the campus conversation about diversity.

“I think it’d be neat to offer sound bites…for future reference, or even for the prospective students [who may be wondering], ‘Hey, what do the staff talk about? What do the students talk about? And what can I learn if I go to SDSU,’” James said.

The show airs each second and fourth Friday of the month at 11 a.m. on KSDU 90.7. The next show will be Friday, Feb. 12.

“We need to realize that diversity is fun. It’s fun to talk about because you’re learning in the process and you’re meeting new people and you’re moving yourself from point A to point B,” Williams said. “I think the more we expose ourselves to differences we grow. We have to get over this fear of talking about diversity.”