Colorado College’s NPR-member station KRCC brought the popular radio program “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” to Colorado Springs in May. The show, billed as the “oddly informative news quiz,” has an audience of three million listeners and one million podcast subscribers.

CC developed a 10-second tagline for the show promoting Colorado College as “challenging students to mono-task, one class at a time.” The “mono-task” phrase resonated with Marne Glaser, a listener in Chicago. She sent an e-mail which said:

I want to tell you that as I was listening to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell  Me” on the radio this morning, my ears perked up when I heard the words “mono-task,” “Block Plan,” and “Colorado College” mentioned. I am many decades past college, and have no college-bound kids, but the idea of one course at a time really cheered me. I have been a school psychologist for many years, and just been so disappointed in the continuation of “whoops, there’s the bell — put your work away — next!” practices in the schools. Perhaps it’s my Montessori training that sensitized me to the need for children to focus and mono-task. I think it’s no wonder that kids are so unable to concentrate these days — we sure don’t help them. Likewise, I have been disappointed in the way higher education continues to operate — every day and week fragmented so that success in school has more to do with your ability to administratively orchestrate all the required tasks, while deep learning, thinking, and understanding are short-changed. It gave me a little feeling of hope that some college honored those needs, as well as fortified the connection between the real world and the academic. I wish my college experience could have been like that!

The show can be heard at: www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=35&prgDate=05-08-2010