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AEJMC Public Relations Division Membership Newsletter

Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer 2002

In this issue:

Miami Beach Convention Preview

• Complete PRD Division Program | Other Details

• Division's Action Plan Features Innovation and Engagement
• Be a Buddy!
• Convention Briefs: ABCs of AEJMC, Edelman-Sponsored Luncheon
• Yearbook Signing Party

Other News

• Election Results
• Grad Student Kudos

Division's Action Plan Features Innovation and Engagement

In research, he noted that the division’s researchers and research chair Kirk Hallahan and teaching chair Gee Ekachai continued the division’s prestigious heritage of stimulating new ideas about the field, filling five programming slots of refereed research covering a wide variety of topics.

Thompson highlighted the division’s pre-conference research forum, “The Intersection of Research and the Profession in Public Relations,” which will be devoted to exploring a wide variety of research methodologies; the supporting mechanisms of research, including funding, legal issues and time management; and the interlocking relationships between practitioners and academicians in sustaining the research function. Pre-conference coordinator Lou Falk, assisted by Carolina Acosta-Alzuru and graduate student Cassandra Imfeld Gajkowski, developed programming that will involve professors, professionals looking to connect with academic research, and graduate students who are designing their dissertation research.

Thompson also drew attention to the division’s innovation in developing the in situ research articles in the newsletters, suggesting that the research in progress the articles spotlighted filled an important gap in our publishing framework. He commented that “I feel the in situ column has helped to speed the flow of important ideas into the conversations, lectures and research of our colleagues.”

In teaching activities, Thompson’s report focused on the capstone teaching sessions for important conference programming initiatives the division has undertaken during the past few years. He noted that the division had during the past three years devoted new attention to theory and to ethics, what he felt were neglected areas within our field. This year’s programming, with a session on teaching theory within the discipline and another on teaching ethics, will provide “practical steps for integrating those subjects into classroom, and innovative teaching tactics for making them come alive for our students,” he wrote.

In the report’s section on professional freedom and responsibilities, Thompson noted the division’s exploring each of the PF&R areas – free expression; ethics; media criticism and responsibility; racial, gender and cultural inclusiveness; and public service. Derina Holtzhausen, PF&R chair, supervised the programming of six PF&R conference panels, and Journal of Public Relations research editor Linda Hon coordinated the publication of journal articles covering important PF&R topics.

Thompson’s report noted the significant resources the division had devoted to continuing discussions of racial, gender and cultural inclusiveness, extending the PRD’s past attention to cultural issues important to the conference’s location. He particularly noted the division’s sponsorship of “Segmenting the Spanish-Language Media Market,” originated by division head-elect Patricia Curtin.

Thompson selected the division’s public service component as its most important PF&R achievement. The division made a major commitment this year to provide more value and service to graduate students, and extended that contribution to the association’s other divisions. North Carolina graduate student Cassandra Imfeld Gajkowski headed a task force examining how graduate students could perceive higher rewards from joining AEJMC and attending the conference. Gajkowski and Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, the division’s graduate student liaison chair, assembled a pre-conference program called “The ABCs of AEJMC,” which will inform graduate students how they can maximize their AEJMC membership at the conference, in their graduate education and in their eventual job search. The division has extended the invitation to the “ABCs” session to all the other divisions’ graduate students through the Graduate Student Interest Group and personal communication to division and interest group heads. He also noted the help from national student membership chair Michael Palenchar, who studied student attendance patterns for the AEJMC conference and designed a communication plan to stimulate membership recruiting and student involvement.

The report concluded by listing incoming head Ken Plowman’s three goals for the coming year. Plowman indicated he wants to continue the division’s focus on graduate student liaison, to improve interaction between the division’s senior and junior members, to develop a competitive papers panel that concentrates on theory, and to gain outside organizational sponsors for research panels lacking sponsorship.

The PRD annual report can be found in its entirety on the division's website.

Be a Buddy!

As a graduate student, you may wish you knew the faces of the people whose books and articles you've been reading for your classes. You may want to get some insight into the job market for public relations professors or practitioners. You may want to find out more about a particular program, either for its Ph.D. program or its vacant faculty positions. The Buddy Program will give you these opportunities by pairing you with a public relations professor in your areas of interest.

The program is informal. All you need to do is meet informally with your faculty "buddy" – perhaps over coffee or just between program sessions. Your faculty "buddy" could become a valuable mentor as you continue your graduate education in public relations.

If you would like to participate, send the following information to Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru (cacosta@arches.uga.edu), Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, fax 706-542-2183.

___Yes! I want to be a conference buddy at the 2002 conference in Miami Beach.

___I am interested but not planning to attend the 2002 conference. Keep me posted on future Buddy Program activities.

Are you a ___ graduate student or ___ faculty?

Provide your name and school affiliation; summer address, phone and e-mail; and a list of three areas of academic interest in the field of public relations, three areas of academic interest outside PR, and three areas of non-academic interest (hobbies or leisure activities).

Convention Briefs

"The ABCs of AEJMC" – Tuesday Pre-Conference

Do you want to learn how to showcase yourself and capitalize on all of the wonderful networking opportunities offered by AEJMC's national conference?

In sum, do you want to get the most out of the conference? This pre-conference panel provides the ABC's of maximizing your AEJMC experience.

Details

Make Reservations Early for Edelman-Sponsored PRD Luncheon.

Contact Pat Curtin (pcurtin@email.unc.edu).

Event Details | Reservations Details

Yearbook Signing Party

From the same division that brought you the "I'm So Cited!" social honoring the most prolific researchers in our field, comes this summer's Yearbook Signing Party, complete with fun and prizes!

Here's the game. All through the conference, we encourage PRD members to ask the division's presenters, moderators and respondents, as well as colleagues and friends, to autograph their conference programs. We've recruited photos from many of our presentors for this purpose.

There will be more opportunities to get signatures during our Yearbook Signing Party on the evening of Thursday, August 8. We'll have a few drinks and snacks and enjoy the balmy evening breezes at Coconut Willies at the Fontainebleau Hilton, an event organized by the division's professional liaison, Lisa Fall, in cooperation with the Miami Chapter of PRSA.

Then the moment of truth will arrive. Before the conference starts, Division Head William Thompson will have chosen a secret signature, a presentor, moderator or respondent whose autograph will be the key to the prize. Many of the potential secret signature presentors will be identified with "I'm With the Program" stickers on their nametags. Each member who has had that presentor sign his or her conference program, and who has presented the program to the contest judges, will be eligible for the prize drawing during the Yearbook Signing Party.

The lucky winner will get a prize package assembled by the Kansas City Convention and Tourism Bureau to make the winner's 2003 conference less expensive and more fun. Depending on scheduling and availability, there will be Kansas City Royals baseball tickets, tickets to Kansas City attractions, vouchers for restaurants, and perhaps even free hotel accommodations during the conference.

The point of all this? We hope it will serve as an icebreaker that will encourage more contact among division members, which Alan Freitag, our former membership chair, often advocated as he was leading our big jump in membership. Plus the signatures of your colleagues will transform your conference program into a keepsake of your time in Miami.

So join us in (1) getting the most autographs from our division's prestigious and emerging scholars during the conference; 2) joining the festivities at the PRD Yearbook Signing Party on Thursday, August 8, at Coconut Willies; and (3) being at the 2003 Kansas City conference to envy the lucky winner of this year's prize.

Election Results

A runoff between Daradirek “Gee” Ekachai, Marquette, and Laurie Wilson, Brigham Young, for the position of elected delegate will be held during the division’s business meeting at the convention in Miami Beach.

Grad Student Kudos

Samsup Jo, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, is the winner of the 2002 Dr. Walter K. Lindenmann Award, a scholarship sponsored by Ketchum PR to promote academic research in public relations. The $15,000 award consists of a study grant for the winning student, a grant for the student’s faculty adviser, and an eight-week internship with Ketchum.

Andrew M. Ragsdale, a master’s student at the University of Florida, is the recipient of the 2002 public relations scholarship/internship sponsored by Allstate Insurance Company. Ragsdale is spending the summer working for Allstate in Chicago.