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AEJMC Public Relations Division
Membership Newsletter

Volume 33, Number 4
Fall 1999

In this issue:

• Edelman seeks new core competencies
• Don't Take Cash for "Granite"
• Make Your PRD Resolutions Now!
• PRD Benefits Tough to Beat
• Rats...I Mean Nutria
• Newsbriefs: paper competitions... editors... conferences
• Convention Photos
• 1999-2000 Leadership Directory

Edelman seeks new core competencies

STRATEGIC THINKERS familiar with finance and business who can work in teams have the edge in today's public relations job market. That's the message PR educators took back to their campuses after John Edelman addressed the PRD Awards Luncheon during the August convention of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication in New Orleans.

Edelman Worldwide Public Relations sponsored the luncheon, which was organized at Le Meridien by Bill Adams, Florida International. In addition to the technological expertise that everyone needs, particularly in regard to the internet, Edelman recommended that the following skills be practiced through internships, practical class assignments and other related experience while students earn their degrees.

• Business knowledge related to operations and finance.
• Strategic thinking.
• Application of the case method of problem-solving.
• Ability to work efficiently with others in a team.
• Ability to counsel, coach and supervise teams of employees.

AWARDS for PRD teaching research were sponsored by the International Association of Business Communicators. The IABC first-place paper, "An Exploratory Look at Graduate Public Relations Curricula," was written by Linda Aldoory, University of Maryland, and Elizabeth Toth, Syracuse. "A National Study of a Three Weekend Accelerated Class Format Within the Public Relations Curriculum" by Lisa Fall, Michigan State, won second place. "The World Wide Web, On-line Resources and Public Relations Practitioners: What They Use and What They Recommend for Students" by Michael Ryan, Houston, won third place.

Awards for faculty research were sponsored by the Arthur W. Page Society. "The Models of Public Relations in India" by K. Sriramesh, Florida, won first place. "An Innovative Look at Gender in Public Relations" by Donald Wright and Jill R. Haynes, South Alabama, won second place. "Measuring the Economic Value of Public Relations" by Yungwood Kim, Illinois State, won third place.

Awards for student research were sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America. The PRSA first-place paper, "Standardizing International Crisis Communication in the United States: The Effects of Spokesperson Identity," was written by Laura Ralstin, Alabama. "Responding to Crisis: The Communications Aftermath of the Thurston High School Shootings" by Andi Stein, Oregon, won second place. "What Dimensions Constitute a Good Corporate Image in the Eyes of Chinese Educated Publics" by Betty Kaman Lee, Hong Kong Baptist, won third place.

Don't Take Cash for "Granite"

THE GEOLOGY PROFESSOR had taken his young students on a rock-hunting trip and now they were busily sifting and winnowing to find the samples he'd requested. Suddenly, one of the students came running up, excitedly waving a gray chunk of stone as though she'd uncovered the Holy Grail. The professor took one look and told her she'd merely come across an old piece of concrete. "Oh," the student said, forlornly, "I guess I just took it for granite."

Without a shred of embarrassment about that pun, here's the segue: The PR Division shouldn't take for "granite" the wonderful cash-prize awards we've been so fortunate to have for our three paper-award competitions. So, fresh from the annual Awards Luncheon in New Orleans, it behooves us to take a quick look at those awards. Who are our benefactors and what can you do to help keep this program operative?

With a grand total of $3,000 in award money, the divisional breakdown goes like this: $1,000 from the Arthur W. Page Society for the top three faculty papers; $1,000 from IABC for the Top Three teaching papers; and $1,000 from PRSA/PRSSA Educational Foundation for the top three student papers. With all that green at stake, those of us who are not independently wealthy (and you know who you are) should be at our computers right now, turning out papers. Or at the very least, crunching research numbers.

And here's what you can do: Write good, solid papers that move our field forward. Make the people who fund those awards proud of their association with the PR Division and public relations education in general. Mix the theoretical with the practical; help bridge the gap between education and the profession. And encourage your students to do the same. Hey, for some kids, a few hundred bucks of prize money for a good paper can mean funding for another course or an upgrade for their computers. And for faculty, it might mean help toward underwriting a trip to one of our many professional conferences.

Oh, and one other thing. Seriously, don't take the prize money for "granite." A note of thanks for their support to people representing the Page Society (Don Wright), IABC (Nancy Green) or PRSA/PRSSA (Elaine Averick) would be a nice insurance policy. Hey, you're good at this kind of thing, right? You're in PR.

Make Your PRD Resolutions Now!

Barbara DeSanto
Oklahoma State

HAPPY NEW YEAR! With all the hoopla about the Year 2000, I thought I'd get you making New Year's resolutions NOW about how you can help make this the best year ever for the PRD. We'll worry about dieting, quitting smoking and flossing twice a day on December 31.

Under the expert guidance of Immediate Past Head Susan Dimmick, the division continued to be one of the AEJMC leaders - in conference programming, in member retention and new member recruitment (particularly in growing our own through graduate students), in developing and maintaining a division website and newsletter that have earned kudosŠthe list is impressive. It's up to us, now, to not only carry on that pace, but get even more people involved in our division.

Involved...committed...time... words that make people break out in hives! But here are a few painless suggestions on how you can get involved.

• Suggest a panel session idea for next year's Phoenix convention. Think of a hot topic in the public relations profession right now and tell us how it could be presented using your contacts and ideas. Contact Vice-Head and Programming Chair Pamela Bourland-Davis, Georgia Southern University, .
• Talk to your fellow public relations educators and practitioners who are NOT members of the PRD and sign them up. Benefits include interaction with the movers and shakers of our profession, as well as newsletters, updates, a website of information and a subscription to Teaching Public Relations. Call the AEJMC Central Office at 803/796-0271 to join, or contact me at or 405/743-2386 and I'll get you signed up.
• Combine your other public relations professional affiliations - PRSA, IABC or any of the other specialized groups - with the PRD. We are always looking for professional development opportunities for PR practitioners and educators, and you're a key piece of that effort. Contact Professional Freedom & Responsibility Chair Rochelle Tillery Larkin, Howard University, .
• Write an article for our newsletter. You're reading this; why not see your name in print? We encourage your ideas to be part of this newsletter. Contact Newsletter Editor Susan Gonders, Southeast Missouri State, .
• Get cracking on the research that will earn you the distinction of an award-winning paper at next year's convention. Faculty research, graduate student research and teaching research will benefit from your work. Future newsletters will provide all the research paper details and contacts.

And, a heartful thank-you to Susan Lucarelli Dimmick, who provided such sterling leadership last year. Her work is an example of the dedication and professionalism that make the PRD an outstanding part of AEJMC.

PRD Benefits Tough to Beat

Alan Freitag
UNC-Charlotte

HERE ARE A FEW THINGS you did not miss:

• How to measure the success of PR classroom projects
• How to incorporate current events into the PR classroom
• The level of ethnic representation in PR texts
• The level of legal department encroach- ment into the PR function
• The relationship of the Titanic's sinking to PR's historical development
• How PR is depicted in film and fiction

• How medical PR professionals define their boundary-spanning role
• How to ensure success in international PR assignments
• Models of PR practice in India
• What makes an effective website for non- profits

As teachers of this extraordinary field, the responsibility falls heavily upon us to elevate the profession in practice and public perception. What better way than to participate actively in one of the flagship organizations dedicated to that signal goal? Further, as evangelists of this effort, we ought to ensure that each of our non-member colleagues is aware of the benefits we enjoy. Those non-members might include teaching colleagues, graduate students aiming to teach, and even practitioners.

That last category - practitioners - may seem incongruous for an academic association. Nevertheless, discussion in New Orleans frequently focused on the need to imbue the profession with increased doses of theoretical concepts. At the same time, academe (especially our students) always benefits from real world currency. Recall, too, that our parent organization is the Association for (not of) Education (not Educators) in Journalism and Mass Communication. With the increasing competition for our quality graduates, it's time for practitioners to recognize the need to step up and register that they're for PR education. John Pavlik (in his Public Relations: What Research Tells Us) said more than 10 years ago that the communication gap between scholars and practitioners could be bridged by a combination of a more direct writing style by scholars and greater understanding of relevant theories and methods by practitioners. The PRD is ideally suited to provide that bridge.

Within the next few weeks, we'll have available a brief PowerPoint presentation you may incorporate into graduate classes to encourage students, especially at the doctoral level, to become engaged in the PRD. A separate presentation will be targeted toward professionals and will be appropriate for inclusion during your regional PRSA meetings. The slides, which will include accompanying notes, may be projected electronically or printed as overheads.

The plan is to distribute both presentations as file attachments using our new PRD list server. To that end, and to receive automatically and instantly any important messages generated by division leaders, subscribe to the list server by sending an e-mail message to listserv@email.uncc.edu. Leave the subject block blank. In the message block, type "subscribe aejmcprd" (no spaces within "aejmcprd" and without the quotation marks). You should soon receive a confirmation message indicating you're a subscriber.

Current PRD membership is more than 415 and that represents healthy growth, but our aim is to ensure that all potential members are aware of division benefits. Know anyone you need to educate?

Rats...I Mean Nutria

Pam Bourland-Davis
Georgia-Southern

IF I WERE ATTENDING the past conference for the first time, I might well wonder how Barb DeSanto as program chair came up with such panel ideas. But having sat behind her at the ever-so-sacred "chips" table at last year's mid-winter meeting, I've come to appreciate the conference program work that she and all the other past program chairs have accomplished.

Here is what I will be doing with the panel proposals that you will hopefully be submitting in the near future.

First, I review your suggestions and reduce them to a manageable, non-redundant and viable number of panel proposals. These are then copied and circulated among all program chairs. Chairs review this package of proposals for similar ideas, and deals are then made with other divisions to co-sponsor panels of common interest.

Program chairs then go through AEJMC's version of a draft with conference time slots being selected based on a half-chip for co-sponsored sessions and a full chip for sole sponsorship. A specified number of chips are given with some reserved for research sessions. Generally, time slots for sole-sponsored sessions are chosen in the last rounds of the draft. What this means for panel proposals that you might have is that, if your panel idea makes it to the bidding table, it may not end up exactly as you've proposed. In making deals with other groups for co-sponsorship, they may ask for seats on the panel or a lead role in finalizing the panel.

With this process in mind, we need to begin with as many good ideas as possible. To get your proposals through with fewer changes, develop panel ideas so that they will have special interest for other divisions. Consider the conference theme as well: "Does journalism and mass communication research matter?"

RECOMMENDED FORMAT FOR PANEL PROPOSALS:

Panel Type (choose one): Teaching, Research, or Professional Freedom & Responsibility (PF&R)

Title: It helps if the title catches the attention of possible co-sponsors

Possible Division Co-sponsors: Any other divisions and interest groups. Without co-sponsors, we would likely have conference program space for only five or six panels. Co-sponsors allow us to double that number and meet a variety of interests.

Brief Description and Rationale: What is the focus of the program that you envision and why is it relevant or important?

Possible Panelists: Suggest three to five names and their affiliations and addresses. If possible, include suggested angles or titles for the panelists. Because panels are co-sponsored, these may not be the final panelists or the exact topics to be addressed.

Are you willing to organize this session? If yes, include address, phone number and e-mail.

Conference proposals are due by October 1. Use the format described above and e-mail or fax your ideas to Pam Bourland-Davis, pamelagb@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu, 912/681-0822.

Newsbriefs: paper competitions...editors...conferences

Susan Gonders
Southeast Missouri State