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Archaeology podcast geared at educating public earns Dr. Ken Holyoke and on-air partner national award

trevor.kenney — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 15:49:21 +0000

Dr. Ken Holyoke will be the first to tell you how much he loves to talk — especially about archaeology — and that enthusiasm has been recognized with a national award.

Dr. Ken Holyoke in his home studio.

Holyoke, an assistant professor in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Department of Geography and Environment, and his on-air partner Dr. Gabriel Hrynick of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick, have been awarded the 2024 Public Communications Award from the Canadian Archaeological Association for their unique collaboration — the New Brunswick Archaeology Podcast (NBAP).

The award comes as the duo are putting a wrap on their second season of NBAP, and further validates the concept that led them to create the podcast in the first place — that the general public has an appetite for history. Through their work they are addressing gaps in public education relating to archaeology, archaeological scholarship, heritage legislation, cultural resource management (CRM) and Indigenous pasts.

“We were fully anticipating if we could reach 10 people, that’d be 10 more than we did before,” laughs Holyoke. “We sort of make fun of ourselves in saying that the reach of the podcast in the first season alone far exceeded the impact of any of our academic papers.”

Holyoke, left, and Dr. Gabriel Hrynick have found there is an appetite in the public for the issues they discuss.

Holyoke encourages newcomers to NBAP to forego the pilot podcast where he admits the two were nervous, meandering and lacking proper production elements, such as good audio. They’ve grown in confidence since and now present a polished, informative and focused show. The production value is also greatly enhanced thanks to the work of ULethbridge Digital Audio Arts student Emanuel Akel. He was brought on board thanks to a ULethbridge SSHRC Exchange grant the duo received that allowed them to enhance their product while giving an undergraduate student an outstanding work-integrated learning opportunity.

The podcast is centred in New Brunswick because Holyoke does the majority of his work there, he’s a born and raised New Brunswicker, and he recognized a dearth of well-established public archeology mechanisms. He and Hrynick explain in a recently published article about their podcast that archaeology is at a crucial moment for public engagement.

“Pressing societal needs and legal decisions, including Indigenous land claims, increasingly draw on archaeological information,” they write. “At the same time, threats to the archaeological record from climate change and development are increasing. In response to these concerns, public archaeology is increasingly necessary as it brings archaeological research to the general public.”

More live shows, like this one at a local pub in New Brunswick, could be in the offing in season three of the podcast.

Holyoke and Hrynick even presented a live podcast in a New Brunswick tavern during season two and are already imagining where season three might take them. As they approach a landmark 10,000th download, they’re just above 8,300 now, they’re keen to show their new media approach and open-access format can be applicable in other regions of the country.

“Based on the feedback to the podcast via our email address, social media engagements and attendance at a recent live recording, there is considerable public interest in archaeology,” they note.

Holyoke describes running into random people who have mentioned they tune into their show, a student group from St. Mary’s ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Halifax that plays it in their lab, and a crew of archaeological consultants in northern B.C who listen in while on the job.

“There are a bunch of people we’d like to interview for season three and we’re looking at focusing broadly on the theme of human-environment interactions,” he says. “It’s great, it’s turned into something we really enjoy doing and we want it to continue to grow, in part because there’s quite a bit of effort that goes into it now and we’d like to be able to reach more people.”

The podcast is hosted through RSS.com, which facilitates posting the podcasts to services such as Spotify or Apple. The full show lineup is available on Spotify here.

Horns soccer looks to build off success

trevor.kenney — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:34:59 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns have finalized their schedules for the Canada West soccer season and for the program's men's team, the focus will be on building off of last season's 18-point performance, a franchise best.

The men's program will open its 2013 campaign with a home-and-home series against the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary Dinos, Sept. 7-8 (at home on Sunday, Sept. 8). That's the start of a 15-game schedule that will also see the Horns play host to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Saskatchewan Huskies, Mount Royal ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Cougars, UNBC Timberwolves, UBC Thunderbirds and the Trinity Western Spartans.

The Horns won four games last season and narrowly missed the playoffs with 18 standings points. They will once again play in the six-team Prairie Division, looking for one of three playoff spots.

The regular season concludes on Oct. 27 followed by three rounds of playoffs in four days at the home of the first-place finisher in the five-team Pacific Division. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick in Fredericton, N.B. is the site of the 2013 CIS men's championship tournament, Nov. 7-10.

On the women's side, the Horns are coming off a one-win season but with 21 players eligible to return from last season's roster (that included 11 first-year players), it should be a much more seasoned and cohesive group.

The Canada West women's set-up differs from the men in that only one, 13-team division exists, with the top eight teams qualifying for playoffs.

After opening the schedule on the road with games against the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta and Mount Royal ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Cougars, the Horns will host the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Winnipeg Wesmen on Saturday, Sept. 14 at the U of L Community Stadium.

The Horns will also play host to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba Bisons the next day and host the UNBC Timberwolves, UBC Thunderbirds and Trinity Western Spartans to round out the home schedule.

Canada West playoffs open with quarter-finals on Oct. 26, after which teams will be re-ranked for semifinals and medal matches on Nov. 2-3. The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto hosts CIS Nationals, Nov. 7-10.

For a look at the complete Pronghorns soccer schedule visit the website at www.gohorns.ca. For season tickets, call Pronghorn Athletics at 403-329-2681.

Chinooks inducted into hall of fame

trevor.kenney — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:10:29 +0000

It has been 40 years since a group of women from a new and small institution captured the school's first national championship, and the school will celebrate that accompishment by inducting the 1971 ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Chinooks into the Pronghorns Hall of Fame at the 44th Pronghorn Blue and Gold awards banquet on Friday, Apr. 8.

Just four years into the existence of the institution, the Chinooks captured the Canadian Junior Women's Basketball Championship at the War Memorial Gymnasium at Vancouver's ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia.

The Chinooks, later renamed the Pronghorns in the fall of 1971 when the campus moved to its westside location, were coached by Wilma Winters, a Lethbridge native and assistant professor of physical education at the U of L. The team's roster was made up of players from southern Alberta with the nucleus hailing from provincial championship teams at Kate Andrews High School in Coaldale.

The U of L squad had come close to winning a national title the year before, losing to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick in the final of the 1970 national tournament, which was held in Lethbridge.

Lethbridge began its run the next year by once again claiming claimed the Alberta crown by defeating Red Deer College 66-29 and Mount Royal College 71-25. It marked the Chinooks' third straight provincial title win.

At the Canadian championships, the Chinooks opened by winning a 46-45 squeaker against host UBC and then advanced to the final by beating Ottawa 70-59. In the title game, Lethbridge defeated Victoria 52-40, with a great team effort.

Members of the team coached by Winters included: Dixie Dow, Linda Dogterom, Leona Voth, Minne Van Dieren, Sharon Giduk, Marge Moore, Linda Voth, Rosemary Brodrick, Joan Cannady and Linda Dow.

U of L gets high marks

trevor.kenney — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:20:39 +0000

Student satisfaction gets top grades at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, according to the results of a Maclean's magazine poll.

In areas such as class size, student/professor interaction, overall quality of education and student satisfaction, the U of L ranked consistently high. Maclean's magazine posted the results of the 2008 Canadian ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Survey Consortium (CUSC) poll on its website Thursday, and the results for the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge show high marks ranging from 96 per cent to 87 per cent on seven indicators of student satisfaction. More than 12,000 students participated nationally.

The U of L scored best in the area of class size, with 96 per cent of respondents either very satisfied or satisfied with the average size of classes.

Following is a breakdown of the seven indicators and where the U of L scored, in terms of percentage.

2008 Canadian ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Survey Consortium results

How satisfied with the average size of your classes?
96% Very Satisfied/Satisfied

Most of my professors encourage students to participate in class discussions
95% Agree Strongly/Agree

Most of my professors are reasonably accessible outside of class to help
students
94% Agree Strongly/Agree

How satisfied are you with the overall quality of the education you have
received at this university?
94% Very Satisfied /Satisfied

My learning experiences at this university have been intellectually
stimulating
92% Agree Strongly/Agree

At this university, professors treat students as individuals, not just
numbers
87% Agree Strongly/Agree

Improvement needed on teaching ability
36% None/Very Little

All participating universities and their respective rankings can be found on the Maclean's Website.

The CUSC was created in 1994; it is a Canada-only survey, and is in large part about student satisfaction. In 2008, 31 institutions took part, including two universities — UBC and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick — that surveyed multiple campuses.

Surveys were sent to a random sample of approximately 1,000 undergraduates at each university. Institutions with fewer than 1,000 undergrads surveyed the entire cohort.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge also measures student satisfaction through a variety of additional surveys.

UNews - ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of New Brunswick

Archaeology podcast geared at educating public earns Dr. Ken Holyoke and on-air partner national award

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