About the show
Forging Day One takes its name from the university’s tagline, “Forging day one from one day,” and its premise from the way Porter actually works: most of what happens here is applied, specific and a little odd when you look closely. Each episode is one 35- to 45-minute conversation with two or three guests about one thing — a research project, a tradition, a building, a game — and the people who know it best.
The show is produced by University Marketing & Communications, the same office that publishes Porter Falls Magazine, student stories and research spotlights, and many episodes go deeper on something one of those first wrote about. It is a university production, not an independent one. We edit conversations for length and clarity, not for message, and guests do not approve the final cut, though they can ask for a factual correction.
New episodes come out on Tuesday mornings roughly every six weeks while classes are in session. The show takes June through mid-August off. Season one ran September 2025 to May 2026; season two began August 25, 2026, and the next episode is planned for mid-November.
The hosts
- Corinne Lacasse
- Senior writer, News & Media Relations. Covered county boards and school referendums for nine years at a weekly paper in Tamarack before joining Porter in 2017. Asks the follow-up question the guest was hoping to skip.
- Abe Tollefsrud
- Video producer, Photo & Video. Shoots most of the university’s lab and athletics footage and is responsible for the show’s cold opens, which are always real sound recorded on location. Asks what the machines do.
Episodes are recorded in the student podcast booth in Founders Union, which UMC books by the hour through the involvement suite like any other user (see campus radio & podcast studio), or on location with a portable kit. A student audio producer, hired through the student jobs board, edits and mixes each episode. If you want to make a show of your own, the Porter Podcast Network trains students on the same equipment.
How to listen
- In your podcast app. Search for “Forging Day One” and choose the show from UW–Porter Falls, then follow or subscribe so new episodes download on their own. It is free and has no advertising.
- On this site. Each episode has a show-notes page with a summary, chapter times, a transcript excerpt and every link mentioned on the air. Jump to a chapter in most apps by tapping the time.
- Transcripts. Every episode has a full, speaker-labeled transcript, available in your app’s transcript view or as an accessible document by email to podcast@uwporterfalls.edu. Show notes and transcripts follow the university’s digital accessibility standards.
- Short on time? Each page lists chapters, so you can listen to the eight minutes about the anvil and skip the rest. We will not be offended. Abe might.
Episodes average about 1,100 downloads in their first 30 days. The most downloaded so far is episode 2, on the Forge Bowl, which surprised nobody in the athletics office.
All episodes
| No. | Released | Episode | Guests | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | October 6, 2026 | Key No. 214 | Duane Kolsrud, director of Facilities; Rachel Thorsgaard ’09, contributing writer, Porter Falls Magazine | 43 min |
| 7 | August 25, 2026 | It Was Never the Film | Dr. Grace Nakamura, assistant professor of plastics and packaging engineering; Hallie Brekken, senior, packaging (student lead) | 37 min |
| 6 | May 5, 2026 | Twenty-Three Nurses and a County | Pa Nhia Lor ’14, B.S.N., nurse manager, Tamarack clinic; Dr. Grace Vasquez, professor of nursing | 45 min |
| 5 | March 24, 2026 | 1,893 Minutes | Hollis Vang, director of Advancement & Alumni Relations; Pete Odegaard, head coach, cross country and track & field | 36 min |
| 4 | February 10, 2026 | Harold Doesn’t Mind | Sofia Rasmussen, professor of practice in nursing education and simulation; Dr. Laura Vance, dean, College of Health Sciences | 42 min |
| 3 | December 9, 2025 | The Cold Reach | Dr. Grace Beaumont, professor of biology; Delia Marchetti, senior, environmental science | 39 min |
| 2 | October 28, 2025 | Seventy-Four Meetings and an Anvil | Ray Gutzmer, head football coach (10th season); Marcus Webb, Athletics Hall of Fame, class of 2015 | 44 min |
| 1 | September 16, 2025 | The Ladle and the Line | Dr. Elaine Vandehey, chancellor; Lyle Haugen ’81, senior lecturer, Machine Tool Technology | 41 min |
Newest first. Show notes for older episodes are updated when the story moves on — episode 3, for example, now notes that its student guest won the 2026 Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Prize.
Suggest a guest or a topic
The best episodes so far started as an email. We are looking for people doing something specific: a faculty member partway through a project, a staff member who knows how some part of campus really works, an alum whose job would surprise their professors, a tradition with a story behind it. Two or three sentences to podcast@uwporterfalls.edu is enough, and self-nominations are welcome.
- Guests are not paid and do not need any audio experience. Recording takes about an hour; plan on ninety minutes if Abe brings the portable kit to your lab.
- We do not do episodes about announcements, rankings or meetings. If it would fit better as a news story, we will pass it to the newsroom; see media relations.
- Faculty looking for a reporter rather than a podcast should also list themselves on the faculty experts page.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Forging Day One, its hosts, guests, episodes and download counts are invented; there is no feed to subscribe to, and searching your podcast app for it will not find a real show.