After a day spent lecturing in the University of Vermont (UVM) School of World Languages and Cultures’ Program in Spanish, Adriana Sanchez-Gutierrez, Ph.D., (a.k.a. DJ Adru) heads to radio station 99.3 FM WBTV-LP in Burlington. There, she sits down in a soundproof studio, dons a pair of headphones, and starts recording an episode of her new show, Hispanic Worlds from Vermont, as she has done each week since it debuted on September 20, 2026.
The show features conversations that focus on the people who make up the local Hispanic and Latino communities in Vermont. “Hispanic Worlds from Vermont gives us an opportunity to connect the classroom with the broader community and invite people into conversations about contemporary issues, culture, identity, language, migration, and music,” Sanchez-Gutierrez says. The larger goal is to amplify Spanish-speaking voices and to create a welcoming space where Spanish is not simply something that students study, but also something they actively use to communicate, participate, and connect with others.
Prior to recording each hour-long episode, Sanchez-Gutierrez spends hours working behind the scenes. Each week, she must decide on the theme, identify people she would like to speak with, research the topic, prepare questions, communicate with guests and students, conduct the guest interview, and select supporting material that will work well on the radio.
The student involvement comes in the form of podcasts that are created by students as part of their Spanish-language learning and community-engaged work, usually in intermediate-level classes, and then woven by Sanchez-Gutierrez into the material for each program.
Students research their subjects, develop the content, write and record their podcasts in Spanish, and, in many cases, work collaboratively with their classmates. Through mostly solo recordings that sometimes include interviews, students have explored topics such as Bad Bunny, Caribbean cultures, flamenco, salsa, immigration and assimilation, Indigenous groups, and labor inequality in Latin America.
“One of the things I love about the project is the range of subjects,” Sanchez-Gutierrez says. Sometimes a topic comes from something happening in Vermont or in the wider Spanish-speaking world. Other times, it comes from the interests and research of the students. Sanchez-Gutierrez also looks for topics that can open the door to larger conversations.
“The project is particularly valuable because students are producing something for a real audience rather than completing an assignment that only their professor will see,” Sanchez-Gutierrez says. “This gives them an authentic communicative purpose for using Spanish.”
Whitney Dykstra, a sophomore majoring in exercise science and minoring in Spanish, created the podcast, “La Salsa: más que canciones y cantantes” (“Salsa: More Than Songs and Singers”), which aired on Hispanic Worlds in September, in her Spanish 2100 class last spring. Bringing it to life was a long but rewarding process.
“I could not even begin to estimate the number of hours I spent researching, developing, writing, and recording my podcast,” Dykstra says. “But thanks to the way my professor set up the class assignments, all the work seemed a lot more manageable.” She adds that she loved the way the process helped her establish a connection with her professor that felt less like student and teacher and more like coworkers doing something they loved.
Knowing the podcast would be heard by a real audience also affected Dykstra’s work. She says it became less about the grade and much more about creating something informative and meaningful to educate and entertain people. “That meant I spent a lot more time trying to perfect the information and recording quality, keep it interesting, and use what little time I had to really make an impact on the listener.”
In the long term, Sanchez-Gutierrez hopes Hispanic Worlds from Vermont will continue to grow into a real community platform. She wants to feature an increasingly diverse range of voices and expand the number and variety of student podcasts. “Ultimately, I want the show to demonstrate that Spanish is part of Vermont’s present and future,” she says. “The goal is to create more opportunities for conversation, connection, participation, and understanding—one conversation at a time.”
Hispanic Worlds from Vermont airs every Sunday evening on 99.3 FM WBTV-LP from 7 to 8 p.m.
