Dr. Philip Thompsen is the faculty advisor to WCUR. In this role, he advises student leadership in station management, participates in our training program, recruits new members to the station, helps maintain our program automation system, works to enforce station by-laws and policies, and serves as a liaison between the station and the academic mission of the university. He hosts the “Moldy Oldies Show,” and many students sit in on his show as part of their training. He also works with the station’s “mobile journalism” program, which produces the WCUR Weather Minute and Sports Minute.

When Dr. Thompsen joined the faculty at WCU in 1997, WCUR was a closed-circuit AM station, and could only be heard in dormitories on campus. Dr. Thompsen worked with Student Services, Inc. to file an application for an FM broadcast license, and WCUR-FM officially began broadcasting on the air on September 1, 1999. In 2001, we started streaming our signal over the internet.

Dr. Thompsen teaches courses in broadcasting in the Department of Communication, and many students at WCUR have taken one or more of his courses. He is author of the textbook, “On Air: Effective Announcing,” and has published numerous scholarly articles and presentations in the field of media studies. He has also served as faculty advisor to The Quad, the student news service of West Chester University, as well as WCU Studios, our campus television station. Prior to starting his career as a college professor in 1984, he worked for eight years as a professional radio announcer.