By David Herbold, Feb. 9, 2021
Cal Poly Pomona’s Employee and Organizational Development and Advancement division launched a new podcast, The CPP CommunityCast, last month in hopes of reconnecting the campus amid the pandemic. The podcast, organized by the Strategic Learning and Organizational Excellence Initiatives team, explores career-defining moments of Broncos, offers professional advice and discusses development opportunities.
The podcast is designed to be an entertaining experience that highlights Broncos with interesting insights, experiences or helpful advices to share with the campus community.
The CPP CommunityCast features four hosts: Learning and Development Consultants Andrea Handy and Jesus Avalos along with Administrative Trainee Miguel Urrutia and Talent Acquisition Advisor Bryan Taylor. The idea is to promote engagement between students, staff and faculty during a time when in-person interaction is limited.
“Our goal is to entertain, engage and hopefully inspire the CPP community,” Avalos added.
Michelle Elrod, senior director at Strategic Learning and Organizational Excellence Initiatives, explained that her team invests in staff development to create a better student-life experience; thus, the podcast was developed as an extension of its efforts to improve the campus community’s leadership and organizational skills.
Elrod shared that the podcast is a tool for the Strategic Learning and Organizational Excellence Initiatives team to feature interesting guests who will share meaningful insights that allow listeners to connect and grow as people. According to Elrod, the guests will include “thought leaders from on and off the campus that can provide insight and perspective on a particular topic.”
The topics covered in each podcast will be specific to the guest’s expertise in their career and life experience. For example, Elrod, featured as the first guest of the podcast, shared stories related to leadership that she learned throughout her life journey.
Elrod discussed that the familiar, casual approach of the interview included both thought-provoking discussion about challenges she has faced in her career as well as entertaining back-and-forth with the hosts. She shared tips from her work experience and life hacks that she has adopted over time.
The CPP CommunityCast is uploaded to YouTube for easy accessibility and includes closed captioning.
“We want people to connect on a personal level with our guests and our hosts, and hopefully learn a few things that will make them think or help them be more effective and fulfilled personally and professionally,” Avalos said.
The CPP CommunityCast plans to publish new episodes monthly, and the first episode is available on its YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUApsGJ2brQm45hro6-irxA.