The Forum has paid special attention to colleges ever since its beginning in 1967, Suhrcke says, when the Unitarian Universalist’s Association decided to launch a response to the teach-ins that many universities were conducting at the time.

“The Unitarian Universalists, who have always been a non-divine religion, started urging their congregations across the country to start public forums,” explains Suhrcke. “There were forums in a lot of Unitarian churches in the late 60s and early 70s, but [ours] has survived, just by virtue of it being in Cambridge and having access to so much expertise and so many visiting people coming through. We can maintain a weekly schedule of programs, which would be hard to do in Fargo.”

The Forum remained a Cambridge phenomenon for its first three seasons, inviting little-known expert guests to small, off-air discussion groups to increase awareness on a local level. In 1970, Bob Ferrante, currently the executive producer of NPR’s Morning Edition in Boston, discovered the sessions and asked to record them for radio. Most recently, the show has expanded onto the internet, offering many of its past shows in streaming RealAudio format for download.

Suhrcke’s plans for the show include forming tighter relationships with activist groups and political organizations, as well as exploring ways to use the web for interactive content.

“We’re not set up for activism, or for book discussion, or lobbying, or advocacy, or anything like that,” she says. “Lots of the speakers we have, and lots of the topics we deal with, call for that type of follow up. When you’re just talking, you always run the risk of just preaching to the choir.”