Tennessee Valley Across the Table

Tennessee Valley Across the Table is a student-led podcast that brings locals, often strangers with different views, together to have a candid, unscripted conversation —not to debate issues, but to learn who we are as people. The series is inspired by StoryCorps.

In 2022, men and women within and outside of the university came to campus and opened their lives with stories about their communities and their hopes for the future. This year, UTC honors students under the direction of Will Davis, studied the recordings and selected the material that most resonated with them.

The result is Tennessee Valley Across the Table. This 22-week serial airs one episode weekly from Tuesday, June 6, to Thursday, Oct. 31 on WUTC-FM 88.1. New episodes debut on Tuesdays at 7:45am and repeats on Thursdays at 4:30pm of the same week.
Episodes that have aired on WUTC-FM 88.1 are archived on the radio station’s website: www.wutc.org.

The Story Behind Tennessee Valley: Across the Table

Inspired by NPR’s StoryCorps, whose mission is to honor and celebrate the lives of everyday Americans by listening to their stories, Tennessee Valley: Across the Table is a result of the latest collaboration between the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, StoryCorps, the UTC PodLab; and WUTC-FM 88.1.

StoryCorps in Chattanooga

In 2019, StoryCorps brought its mobile studio-inside-an-Airstream-trailer to Chattanooga and set up shop in the heart of downtown at Miller Park. Tennessee Valley residents signed up for recording slots in which two friends, family members, coworkers, or neighbors have an intentional conversation.

The resulting conversations became the popular podcast Tennessee Valley StoryCorps and aired weekly on WUTC-FM 88.1. While StoryCorps producers were facilitating and recording conversations in Chattanooga, they began a pilot of a new project called One Small Step.