Michigan alumni on shipwrecks, hockey, archives and film.
Listen in, Michigan pairs Michigan Today editor Debra with one guest at a time, usually an alum billed by degree and class year. The talk ranges from the Edmund Fitzgerald and Mike Legg's 1996 goal to disinformation, Ann Arbor's film history and the Unabomber's archive.
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Listen in, Michigan comes from Michigan Today. Its editor, Debra, sets up each episode as a conversation with a single guest tied to the University of Michigan. Episode titles bill the alumni guests by degree and class year, a small detail that says plenty about the show's loyalties. The subjects, though, wander far. John U. Bacon's episode on the Edmund Fitzgerald is timed ahead of the 50th anniversary of the sinking, which claimed 29 men on November 10, 1975, and it gets strikingly concrete about the ship itself. The freighter was one foot shorter than the tallest building in the Renaissance Center. It was also narrow enough to pass the locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron with a foot to spare on each side. There is even an explanation of why fresh water can make Great Lakes waves worse than ocean waves. Debra closes that one by pointing to an excerpt Bacon provided. Jon Fish, a longtime ESPN producer, talks about his documentary on Mike Legg, whose 1996 goal set the Wolverines on course for Red Berenson's first national championship. The move, now called the Michigan, is traced forward to young players who taught themselves stick tricks between Zoom classes. Other episodes leave the ice entirely. Julie Herrada's begins with an ABC News clip announcing the death of Ted Kaczynski, who often targeted academics, among them a Michigan psychology professor in 1985. The conversation then turns to a collection devoted to social protest movements, from anarchism and socialism to civil rights, environmental and LGBT activism. In her closing remark, Debra points out that Herrada persuaded the anti-academic Kaczynski that academia was the best home for his archive. Barbara McQuade, a law professor and MSNBC legal analyst, brings her book Attack from Within and a set of practical fixes: verified identities on social media, transparency about who pays for ads, and new ways to fund local news. Debra recommends the book regardless of political affiliation. Colleen Newvine, a journalist and life coach, makes the case for a mini sabbatical of five weeks or so. The talk dwells on what goes wrong on such a trip, like a third-floor New Orleans rental whose windows were not to be opened and whose air conditioner did not work. Frank Uhle, a cultural historian, brings Cinema Ann Arbor, his history of a local film scene reaching back to 1929, including an art student whose homemade costumes became the film festival's nightly kickoff. Debra's own voice comes through in the closings: a laugh at a story involving a colleague from her State News days at MSU, a nudge to lean on U of M connections, and, every time in this run, a Go Blue. She says she retired the podcast after 60 episodes and revived it for the Fitzgerald special. For Great Lakes history, that special is the obvious place to start. For something more personal, 'Quit your life temporarily' is the gentler way in.
Made for: Suits a listener with a University of Michigan connection. It also suits a curious generalist who is happy to follow one interviewer from a Lake Superior shipwreck to college hockey, disinformation and Ann Arbor film history in the same feed.
What sets it apart: Instead of staying on one beat, it uses the Michigan alumni network as its through line, so a shipwreck author, an ESPN producer and an archivist of protest movements all turn up in the same feed. Debra's closing reactions are personal, full of school spirit and always end in Go Blue, which gives it a warmth that a subject-specific interview show would lack.
"Listen In, Michigan" is an audio storytelling feature brought to you by the online alumni magazine, Michigan Today. From historical features and alumni dispatches to campus news and provocative opinions, "Listen In, Michigan" will entertain and inform, helping to keep you connected to the University of Michigan — today.
A film festival costume and a hockey goal: your Michigan rabbit hole has excellent range.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
John U. Bacon makes the Edmund Fitzgerald's scale, cargo, and peril physically legible.
Listen in, Michigan returns for a special Edmund Fitzgerald episode with John U. Bacon, whose new book revisits the Lake Superior tragedy. Debra Holtschuk begins with Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," treating the song as a kind of ghost story made more…
A sharp Michigan hockey story about a vanished flourish, its unlikely return, and the way sports keep learning new ways to surprise themselves.
Mike Legg's 1996 Michigan goal becomes the anchor for a brisk, well-shaped history of hockey's oddest flourish: how it flashed into view, nearly vanished, and later returned with enough force to reshape the sport's visual vocabulary.
A mini sabbatical becomes a grounded lesson in flexibility, problem-solving, and the value of leaving room for surprise.
A mini sabbatical becomes a clear-eyed look at what happens when a carefully managed life gives itself room to loosen. Debra Holtschip's conversation with Colleen Neuvine stays grounded in the practical pieces, from budgets and talks with a spouse, children, or a boss to the…
A measured PlayNext conversation on disinformation, local journalism, and the civic habits that make democratic life harder to manipulate.
This PlayNext episode frames the information crisis as a civic problem, not just a media problem: how a country built around the First and Second Amendments can still be pulled off course by manipulation, conspiracy thinking, and disinformation.
A Unabomber-linked archive opens onto a wider history of protest, anarchism, and institutional memory.
Julie Herrada's work with Ted Kaczynski's archive gives this episode its most compelling historical angle. The Unabomber case is set beside the Labadee Collection, where social protest movements have been preserved since Joe Labadee's 1911 donation.
World War II, connected front by front.
Psychology with range, curiosity, and depth.
The 90s, rebuilt scene by scene.
Debra Holtschuk returns Listen in Michigan after 60 episodes to talk with John U.
John Fish explains how Mike Legg's 1996 Michigan hockey goal at Michigan became a named move with a second life decades later.
On Listen in Michigan, Debra Holtschip interviews journalist and Michigan Ross MBA graduate Colleen Neuvine about five-week mini sabbaticals and her guide, Your Mini Sabbatical: Quit Your Life Temporarily.
["Debra Holchik talks with Barbara McQuade about how disinformation, social-media incentives, and political tribalism weaken shared facts, using McQuade's book Attack from Within as the frame.", "McQuade argues that truth and facts are not the same thing, and she says Justice Jackson's warning about the Bill of Rights frames the danger of treating rights as a shield for chaos.", "She says the Second Amendment does not authorize private militias, and she treats election-overturning rhetoric as a misuse of constitutional language rather than legitimate rebellion.", "The discussion moves from Russian bot networks and the 10GOP account to Facebook outrage mechanics, Section 230, local-news paywalls, and domestic-terrorism gaps."]
Episode 57 of Listen in, Michigan follows Deborah Holchip's conversation with Julie Harada, curator of the Joseph Antoine Labadee collection at the University of Michigan Library's Special Collections, about Ted Kaczynski's papers.
Debra Holtschip interviews cultural historian and projectionist Frank Uhle about Cinema Ann Arbor, a 344-page history of film culture at the University of Michigan and in Ann Arbor.
A nostalgic look at a famous Michigan football touchdown call and the legacy of announcer Bob Eufer, including a documentary screening.
An interview with sports journalist John U.
An interview with journalist Will Potter about the impact of fake news on reporters and the importance of a free press.
This episode tells the story of University of Michigan alumnus Raoul Wallenberg, a WWII hero who saved thousands of Jews in Budapest before disappearing.