Twice a week, Kiera Benson and Nicole Cacciatore, 2 Felician Communication students with the gift of gab, and a growing love for the medium of radio, co-host a show called Spill the Tea on Radio Felician University.

Benson learned Felician had a radio station after hearing about the Radio Station Club in her Mass Media class. “As soon as I heard that, I just knew I had to have a show” says Benson, who also has a YouTube channel for creating and sharing content.

Benson didn’t want to do the show by herself, so she asked classmate Cacciatore to be her permanent co-host after having her on as a guest. Cacciatore had transferred from a Community College that didn’t have a radio station and loved the idea of co-hosting the show.

Spill the Tea is a unique blend of friendly Campus gossip, and information sharing, something especially important now as Felician deals with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Benson says “we figured online learning would be the perfect thing to talk about because that’s part of what everybody’s dealing with right now at Felician. We had Philosophy Professor Dr. Irfan Khawaja come on as a guest, and the show was such a hit we decided to pitch more Professors for the show.”

“Random Acts of Kindness” was the subject of the first Spill the Tea show, and since then the co-hosts have focused on a variety of topics including food and dining out, pets, vacation as well as travel ideas. They also solicit show ideas and recommendations from their listeners.

Benson and Cacciatore were initially concerned about the logistics of doing the show online instead of at the radio station, but Station manager Jeff Shelly who serves as Felician’s Multi-Media Manager helped move the show online so the fledging show hosts could use Zoom to record Spill the Tea. Shelly says the program is helping them learn essential editing and on-air presentation skills which just might help them define their career goals.

Kiera was nervous at first but says, “once I put that headset on, and got to just talk it was an amazing feeling and almost felt like home.” Nicole concurs saying “I love it,” adding “it’s upsetting to see what’s going on in the world but I feel like Kiera and I have really used this time to get in touch with people and find out what we can talk about that might benefit and educate them about something they wouldn’t have thought about before.”

You can listen to Spill the Tea Thursdays at 8:30 pm and then again on Sundays at 12:30 pm by clicking on this link http://edge.mixlr.com/channel/oozbc.

# # #

About Felician University

Felician University engages over 2,300 undergraduate, graduate, and adult students through programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, Nursing, and Education. Universal Franciscan values of social justice, compassion, and respect for human dignity serve as an inclusive foundation for transforming the lives of tomorrow’s leaders. Felician University’s education is ranked 3rd best return on investment for private colleges in New Jersey 2018 by the PayScale.com College ROI Report and is ranked #1 safest college campus in the state by niche.com.