Maayuk Eta, Contributor

What is KAUG? That’s the same question I’ve been asking myself for the past two years. Though listed on the Augsburg Student Club page, nothing has seemed to be happening in the studio: no club meetings nor radio shows. I had to find out what was going on.

Luckily I was able to sit down with the lovely Madison Siiter, current president of KAUG. Madison was born and raised in Duluth and has a keen interest in music. Having always been drawn to the music scene that Minneapolis has to offer, she picked Augsburg because it has the best of both worlds: a location in the heart of Minneapolis and a music business program. Madison, currently a sophomore, says her dream career is to be the person to pick what music goes into specific scenes in movies, so it comes as no surprise that she was drawn to KAUG.

   KAUG hasn’t been active for a little bit. We’ve seen the vacant room next to “The Echo” office collecting dust and wondered what ever happened to it. Let’s turn to their newest president to get to know where KAUG’s been, what it’s about and where it’s going.

Maayuk: What does KAUG stand for?

Madison S: Well I believe the “K” was made mandatory by the federal communications for all radio stations to start their names with a “K” I think, but the “AUG” stands for Augsburg.

ME: How would you describe KAUG to those who do not know about it?

MS: To me, KAUG is a way to bring students together who have specific voices, people with specific music taste, opinions and style. Just getting together to create some fun content and events.

ME: What does KAUG consist of?

MS: For right now, we’re going to start broadcasting this week or next week. We’re also planning on some events sprinkled in this semester. Like some fun shows, podcasts, open mics and some holiday-theme stuff.

ME: What caused KAUG’s hiatus?

MS: To my understanding, what happened is that we had a grant to redo the studio, we got the grant, but nothing happened, and everything fell a part. There were a lot of issues: we went over budget, then we weren’t granted a budget and it’s hard to do things without getting commissioned.

    But now KAUG is back in business. They’ve finished renovations, so everything is updated and waiting to be used again.

ME: So what are the plans for KAUG this year?

MS: We’ve started meeting every Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. in the Auggie’s nest. Our first meeting was a success. Everyone seems to be excited about it. This week we’ll be signing up for shows, and we’re planning a lot of events. My goal is just to make KAUG more of a community thing for everyone. I want it to be a community for Augsburg students to come together and have events and just have fun.

       KAUG has a great team behind it from Madison Siiter (President), Noah Feldman (VP), Josh Holtz (Marketing), Jeron Lau (Tech and Web Design) and Ezra McNair (Events Planner). I can’t wait to see how these folks bring KAUG to life this year.

Listen to KAUG here: engage.augsburg.edu/kaug/

This article first appeared in the Friday, September 21 edition of The Echo.