Radio Free Hillsdale Hour
The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour is a one-hour weekly radio show bringing the knowledge and teaching of Hillsdale to the world outside of campus. Listeners hear conversations with College faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as with friends, supporters, and scholars outside of the College.
Each episode begins with a conversation with a Hillsdale faculty member. We’ll tackle a topic in the recent headlines and help listeners understand and interpret the details. That’s followed up by an interview with an off-campus guest. We talk with authors, writers, think tank scholars, elected officials, and other journalists and columnists. Then we sit down with a Hillsdale professor to dig into a matter of liberal arts importance. The same educators teaching Hillsdale students will be talking directly to your listeners! We’ll also bring your audience exclusive audio of lectures and speeches that have taken place on Hillsdale’s campus.
Show Links:
Podcasts
About Scot Bertram
Ask my parents about my youth and I suspect they will tell you I was not a normal child. One of my first words was “radio.” I asked for a subscription to USA Today for my eighth birthday. I began following elections closely at the age of ten. I spent hours in the library reading reference books about sports, history, politics, and pop culture through my teenage years. I desperately wanted to be informed and knowledgeable on issues and topics in the world around me.
I also knew from a very early age I wanted to work in radio. I loved the intimacy of the medium and the connection made between host and listener. I was drawn in by its ability to entertain, inform, and communicate on a mass scale. Radio still is a powerful and vibrant tool, teaching skills that can be useful across a number of professions.
My career has taken me from a music-based format at my college station to sports radio in Chicago to news and talk in Rockford. I’ve interviewed rock stars at concert venues, sports legends at the Super Bowl and Spring Training, and powerful political figures and thinkers on the phone and at Radio Rows throughout the country.
What I’ve learned is being a good broadcaster is so much more than having the requisite technical training. It’s just as important to have knowledge about the world around you — to know what has happened in the past and why it matters today. It’s practicing the art of the interview and staying sharp rhetorically. It’s having keen insights on what people are interested in and how to make information and arguments relatable to a wide audience. We focus on all that and more at Hillsdale and WRFH.
I’m a broadcaster by trade, so I continue to stay active in the industry. I frequently fill-in on the Illinois-based Michael Koolidge Show, the Michigan-based Steve Gruber Show, and host multiple podcasts for Hillsdale College and National Review. This gives me real-world and real-time examples to bring into the classroom and keeps me in touch with professional contacts who could benefit our students down the road.
My wife and I live in Hillsdale with our two children. I’m originally from the Chicago area and remain a die-hard fan of the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bears. I once participated in a “Slam Dunk” contest on the floor of the old Chicago Stadium during halftime of a Bulls game (I lost).
