OUAB is always bringing cool and interesting people to campus, and this week is no exception. On March 2 at 2:00 pm, Ira Glass is speaking in the Ohio Union. Glass’s work as a radio personality has made him famous. He has experienced an extremely successful career earning multiple awards including several Peabody Awards, the duPont – Columbia Award, and the Overseas Press Club Award. Glass’s show called This American Life also regularly holds the record for most downloaded podcast.
Ira Glass was born in 1959 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Northwestern University (going to overlook his non-buckeye origins), as well as Brown University. At 19 years old, Glass began interning with National Public Radio (NPR) and managed to work for almost every news program. Glass was a reporter and host for “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Talk of the Nation.” In 1995, Ira was offered to host his own radio show by Chicago Public Radio. This was the beginning of This American Life, which is a show compiled of personal narratives from Americans of different backgrounds and walks of life. Each episode has a theme, and gives listeners an inside look into people’s personal lives. As said earlier, it has been very successful and was even adapted into a television series. The series aired thirteen episodes, and won three Emmys.
The goal of This American Life is to break stereotypes, and prove that the American people cannot be defined in just a few sentences. Glass seems to sum up this goal for diversity in the show by the following remark: “Everything is more compelling when you talk like a human being, when you talk like yourself.” The different themes of the episodes allow various types of American people to be displayed. With its raw personal look into the lives of different people, This American Life is very different from the run-of-the-mill radio show. Perhaps this is why the show has experienced so much success.Glass has handled his success with grace, and it should be well worth students’ time to see him speak on Sunday.