Turn the dial to WXJM
WXJM’s move off campus was slow, but full of success
By Jacob Wilson, contributing writer
Posted on February 1, 2007

Walk into WXJM’s new location and the first thing you’ll notice is the entire wall plastered with graffiti. Huge, colorful spray-painted strokes spell out the call letters of JMU’s only student-run radio station, 88.7 FM.

But aside from this very visible demonstration of the station’s “counter-culture” roots, its new living quarters on the corner of Reservoir Street and Cantrell Avenue, are remarkably plain and clean -cut, lacking even the most obvious of radio station decorations: band posters.

The reason for this conspicuous absence is simple. Band posters covering every inch of available surface creates a fire hazard, and that’s a risk the station is not willing to take. WXJM’s old location within the hallowed halls of Anthony-Seeger was just that — a fire hazard. Its walls not only served as a home for many band posters, but also for the idle doodles the radio staff cared to draw while at work. Unfortunately, such art is no longer a part of WXJM’s image in its new home.

“JMU had planned to raze [Anthony-Seeger] for a performing arts building for the theater and dance department,” said WXJM advisor and WMRA general manager Tom DuVal. “By the time JMU changed that plan, we were already well on the way with the new building project. The WXJM students made an appeal for a space on campus, but JMU was not able to come up with an on-campus option for the station.” 

Now that the station has a new home, the rules have changed: no more band posters and no more drawing anything on the walls. Aesthetics aside the station has gone through some very significant changes since its move last fall.

“Adapting to our move away from campus has really caused us to pull together, and I think that the station has become a lot more accessible for people,” said Becky Martinez, WXJM’s programming manager and one of the station’s top executives. “Our location before was so prime being in Anthony-Seeger Hall. It was a great place to hang out. But once we moved, it was like only the people who really wanted to be there were going to show up because it took so much effort.”

Some of that effort was directed at coping with the numerous obstacles that slowed down WXJM’s transition. The station had problems with equipment not being set up, trouble with Internet access (which the station needs for its online broadcast), and difficulties with staff trying to get to the station. Worst of all, Burruss Hall, where the WXJM signal originates, wasn’t transmitting properly, which delayed the date the station could go on air.

“Some people didn’t expect the station to survive the move,” Martinez said. “We had a lot of problems last year with the difficulties setting up the station and with morale dropping because of the commute.”

Low morale may have been a problem at one point, but currently WXJM is running better than ever, while at the same time making an increased effort to branch out and become more inclusive to the JMU community. Fighting its traditionally negative reputation as a raw and subversive group, WXJM is now trying to improve ties with the university by organizing events with UPB and interacting more with other organizations. For instance, Cinemuse, the JMU film club, has a radio talk show, and JMU’s own 80 One Records has used the station to play its artists’ music and promote their concerts.

“The station’s really different from what it used to be,” Martinez said. “It used to be people who were very focused on obscure music and now we still support it, but we’re interested in getting involved in the university and giving people an opportunity to learn about broadcast radio. It’s not an elitist club. It’s definitely a student organization that cares a lot about broadcast, communication and grass roots media.”

Today if you walk into the station and want to participate, there’s no requirement of knowledge. As WXJM’s General Manager Jess Siemens said during an informational session at JMU’s student organization night, “There’s no experience necessary. A love for music is the only qualification.” JMU sophomore Sarah Delia is a testament to this. Delia has grown through the organization to become a WXJM DJ in the prog genre—or progressive indie music for those unfamiliar with radio terminology, a category Delia herself fit into before joining the station.

“I really didn’t know anything about that kind of music,” Delia said. “But I really lose myself in it now. I just pull out a bunch of CD’s and play them; it’s so much fun to hear things that no one gets exposed to and it sucks that they don’t.”

Delia, however, is only partly right. Some people do get exposed to quality independent music; they’re the ones tuning in to 88.7. After all, the station’s main purpose, aside from providing JMU students with a hands-on environment in which to learn radio, is to give listeners a taste of bands that don’t get any exposure. Just take a look at the first half of the mission statement on WXJM’s website, www.wxjmradio.com. It states that the station exists “to support and promote independent, new, and under-represented artists in the music industry, providing JMU and the Harrisonburg community with a true music alternative to anything else on the dial.”

While WXJM provides Harrisonburg with quality music, it also provides those JMU students involved with a “safe haven,” as Delia describes it, in which to grow. One such student is Mark Maskell, JMU senior and RPM—or electronic music—DJ and genre director.  

“There’s just so much you can get out of it,” said Maskell. “I like playing loud music all night long. I like the people. It’s just a fun place to be. It’s a happy environment.” For someone who spends 30 hours a week working at the all-volunteer radio station, Maskell must be getting something great out of his membership with WXJM. Doubtless, it’s thanks to such staff members as Maskell that the station managed to not only survive, but actually get stronger after its move off campus.

“I see some improvements each year, and Becky and the other managers this year are among the strongest the station has had,”  DuVal said. “That said, the nature of a student-run station is that the improvement process will move forward and slip back over and over. The challenge is to have the forward movements be larger and/or more numerous than the backward ones, and I think that has happened at WXJM fairly consistently.”

It can only be hoped that WXJM’s improvements will some day include fire-proof band posters plastered across its walls and ceilings. Maybe even a return to staff wall-art. Take a look down the hallway attached to the offices of “The Big Three” and you’ll find just a little evidence that such a return isn’t impossible: the walls are streaked here and there with the distinct scuff marks that only a Power Rangers Dino Thunder kickball can produce.