Teaching PR

When does teaching stop?

Some of us #PRprofs had a good conversation on Twitter not long ago that inspired me to ask this question: when does teaching stop?

Here's what I mean. I saw a comment from a young person in my twitterstream making fun of homeless people. I thought it was offensive and not something a young PR professional would really want on their public profile. I clicked through to find out more about the person, and was horrified to see that they're an alum of my school's PR program. I started to send them a direct message suggesting that they think more carefully what they post (which is what I would do if they were still a UGA student, even if I didn't know them). I'd never had the person in class, though, so I reconsidered.

Then I asked the PR profs what they thought I should do: "Do I have a responsibility to non-student tweeting inappropriately?" Urkovia Andrews and Melanie Lockhart (who suggested this as a blog post topic) both responded that they didn't think so; we have to draw the line somewhere, and in this case I don't even know the person, so that crosses the line. Richard Waters also pointed out that being embarrassed to have my university's name on the tweeter's profile is different than having a "responsibility" to that person. And that's true: if were a young PR pro with no connection to my university, I probably would've just unfollowed them rather than going into teacher mode.

Urkovia and Tiffany Gallicano also pointed out that if it were someone else's student, they'd notify the professor -- which is something I've done before, too.  And if I'd known that UGA alum, I'd've definitely sent her a direct message.

It was hard for me to walk away from a teachable moment, but I did. Was that right?

Are all our students above average?

As an incoming member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Standing Committee on Teaching, I attended the plenary session at the annual meeting with even more interest than usual (here's another good session from 2008). The topic this year, "Lake Wobegon meets grade inflation: Are all our students above average?" is one worth considering. I didn't try to take notes on the whole thing, but I did take down the keynote speaker's remarks. Stuart Rojstaczer, retired from Duke and now at gradeinflation.com, was funny and provocative, and had strong opinions to share. He said:

Grades have mostly been going up for 50 years-- why? Push for access (every high school student wants to/is expected to go to college; push for more graduates (emphasis on retention and graduation rates); push for more student satisfaction (consumer-based universities).

Higher education involves 10 million 18-24 year olds and is a $300 billion industry. It influences how democracy operates and influences our economic competitiveness. However, the academic component of college has been diluted. 

Evidence shows that grade inflation began in the 1960s, declined in the 1970s, began again in the mid-1980s and has continued; it's worse at private schools. Evidence also shows that 43% of all grades are now A's -- it's the most common grade! The C, which used to be the most common, is now just 15% of all grades. The numbers of D's and F's has remained relatively stable at about 5%.

People rationalize this in several ways: students are smarter (but the ACT/SAT scores haven't improved, and more students need remedial classes), we teach better, and students work harder (but student engagement, measured by study time, focus on academics, etc., is at an all-time low; literacy of graduates is at an all-time low; and students work less than they used to, not more).

More students are attending college, and many are not well prepared, yet they are still graduating. Faculty have reduced workloads and eased grading in order to accommodate those students. Another problem is the rise of the adjunct, who is poorly paid, has a heavy teaching load, and has little job security and relies on course evaluations to keep the job. The obvious solution for a person in that position is to expect less and grade higher.

Also, every faculty member is now expected to be a great scholar (faculty are distracted by the research imperative), and stagnating wages in the presence of rising college costs means students have high debt and take the pragmatic approach of focusing on the outcome of their degrees rather than learning.

Thus, we now have a "high-school plus" model, and a non-aggression pact between professor and student. "I'll give you high grades and low workloads, if you give me high evaluations and don't bother me after class." Less writing, less reading, dumbed-down texts, and failure is almost impossible.

Implications: higher graduation rates, a more educated populace overall but less education per degree, an unnecessary degradation of educational quality at the top schools. Students and parents want this, and it's what distracted faculty want because they prefer to do research.

So, PR profs, what do you think? Have you experienced grade inflation (I admit that I give more A's than I used to -- now entering my 19th year of teaching), and if so, have any of these factors been an influence? And students, do you think faculty are distracted or unwilling to give you time outside of class? Do you automatically give good evaluations to easy teachers, or bad evaluations to more difficult ones? I'd love to hear about all of your experiences.

Edelman web demo for academics

Of course we've all heard by now about Edelman's controversial new client this week, but here's some other news from the agency.

Edelman has released its updated TweetLevel and new BlogLevel tools, which are designed to help PR people identify influencers on different topics. I played around with the new toy a bit and found out that my "blog is truly influential in [my] sector" -- meaning this blog, with an influence level of 49.3. Poor ol' How Mysterious got a lowly influence score of 7.5 (which I think is generous) and the comment that it's "not a well-read resource for the community you wish to be part of." Waaaa!

As for TweetLevel, I haven't used it much so I couldn't see the difference from version 1, except that now I have a badge:

 

More to the point, Edelman claims that the new tools allow PR people to figure out:

• The most relevant and influential users on various topics (e.g., Moms, food, tech)
• The amount of buzz and noise around a specific area
• The dialogues people are having and the links they’re sharing 
• What any given tweeter or blogger is discussing, influencing, and being influenced by

I found in my 5-minute tire-kicking that the last two points worked a lot better for Teaching PR than for How Mysterious!, but then real clients would have a bigger presence on social media than my book blog, so I'm guessing HM! is irrelevant to this discussion.

Now the real news for my fellow teachers: Edelman is hosting a 30-minute free web demo for academics on how to use these tools to support the PR curriculum. It will be held the week of August 1, and if you're an academic and are interested in the demo, contact megan dot woods at edelman dot com. If that doesn't work for you, there's also a quick video demonstration that might get you started.

 

Movie review: Catfish

My Maymester students recommended "Catfish," a 2010 film about a relationship that began on Facebook, during a discussion on the difference between friends and Facebook friends, so I found it at the local video store and watched it almost immediately after I turned in my grades.

"Catfish" is the story of Nev (pronounced Neev), who became friends with an entire family on Facebook. Nev's brother, Ariel, and his business partner, Henry, shared an office with Nev, and began filming the story of his relationship with this family in 2008. Over the course of a number of months, Nev receives boxes full of art from precocious 8-year-old Abby, talks to her Mom, Angela, hears music composed by Abby's brother's band, and falls for Megan, the beautiful older sister, who's a musician/artist/dancer. The family lives in Michigan, Nev and his buddies in Manhattan.

But then Nev finds one of Megan's songs... on YouTube. Performed by someone else. "It's a cover, it's supposed to sound similar," Megan explains. But Nev continues to investigate and begins to realize that Megan's lying. The guys make a surprise trip to Michigan to find out the truth.

I won't give the whole thing away, but it all turns out to have been a hoax. Nev is understandably upset, but he gets defensive: "They never fooled me," he says, "They just told me things I never called to question." And when they do figure out what's going on, Henry says, "It's not malicious, it's just sad."

Although there are some questions about whether the film is fiction or documentary, Nev's story provides a great way to introduce discussions about anonymity, trust, and online identity. I will definitely use it in class next time we're discussing online relationship building.

 

Jay DeFrank: Results driven communication

I had the great pleasure of attending the first-ever Center for Global Public Relations research conference in Charlotte on April 15 and wanted to share my notes from the keynote speaker, Jay DeFrank, vice president of communications for Pratt & Whitney.

DeFrank started by noting that advertising and PR people who are recognized by their peers are often not the same ones recognized internally -- for example, an ad agency that wins a Clio but gets sacked by their client. What matters most is the impact on the bottom line. He then shared two cases from his own career in which he argues that communication had a significant role on the bottom line.

The first case comes from DeFrank's career in the U.S. Air Force, when he was in charge of communication relating to the Afghan Humanitarian Air Drop. His job was to communicate that the United States was battling the Taliban, not the Afghan people or Muslims, and he argued for and received permission to place journalists on the airplanes doing the drops -- this had been against policy, but he believed it was required in order to convince a skeptical audience that the United States had good intentions in conducting the air drops.

DeFrank also helped with planning for the invasion of Iraq. Leaders were concerned about Iraqi disinformation because of experiences such as the baby milk factory bombing story during the first Gulf War. In addition, they thought it was important to maintain U.S. support for the invasion. With these two main goals in mind, DeFrank's team wrote objectives such as encouraging Iraqi dissent, boosting morale of U.S. troops, and countering Iraqi disinformation. He realized that credibility was key to achieving all of these objectives, and that objective observers were therefore necessary. This was the foundation for the "embed" program, where accredited journalists were embedded with American military units with no prior restraint (although there were rules about the release of information in order to protect the safety of the troops). For comparison purposes, DeFrank described the embed program in Iraq -- from March to May more than 700 journalists were embedded with troops with no prior restraint -- in contrast to the press coverage of the invasion of Normandy -- where there were 42 journalists with complete censorship. He noted that all sorts of press organizations had credentials, even in some instances when the "journalist" was probably a spy for another country; he believed if someone wanted information about the invasion they could have it as long as it didn't endanger the troops.

DeFrank argued that the U.S. military reached its objectives. They were successful in countering Iraqi disinformation, with "Baghdad Bob" being completely discredited; they were successful in gaining the support of U.S. public opinion, and they were successful with international public opinion. He argued that the troops liked having an embedded reporter, even when the story was ugly, because they were able to portray the terrible complexities and to reinforce the credibility of the whole program. Journalists who were not embedded, however, were angry at being left out.

Next DeFrank turned to Pratt and Whitney communications, explaining that the company is #37 on the Fortune 500, producing commercial engines, space power systems, small engines and military engines. He stated that the company's communication goals include building a favorable environment, including the regulatory and policy environment, nurturing talent, and building a positive reputation.

He focused on a specific case, the F135 engine campaign in spring 2009. Their purpose was to convince Congress not to pay for a second (competitive) backup engine for the F135 but to allow P&W to build all of the engines. The company used a broad range of tactics, including a blog and Twitter for media relations and a Facebook fanpage just for the engine; third-party endorsements from organizations that oppose wasteful spending; harnessing employees by having them write letters to their representatives (with a website that helped them identify the right people and their contact information, in addition to generating a rotating letter template so that not all the letters were the same); and an advertising campaign in which Pratt attacked waste, while competitor GE attacked Pratt. The results included 20,000 letters to Congress, a televised endorsement by President Obama, and a House vote in favor of P&W's position, 233-198. (DeFrank was quick to note that the issue could come up again in 2012, though).

Thus, DeFrank concluded, public relations can contribute to the bottom line when strategies and tactics are based on the larger goals and objectives and when PR has a voice internally -- in both of these instances, other people in the organizations were skeptical or even oppositional to the plans, but because he was able to show how the plans would help achieve the larger goals, he had organizational support to move forward.

Congratulations to the University of North Carolina-Charlotte on a successful first Global Public Relations research conference (pictures here).

Assignment experiment: Let students create their own SM projects

• "I have found that Twitter was much more complex and time-consuming than I had expected!"
• "I began my social media project with high expectations."
• "Blogging is not as easy as I expected it to be."

I've written about my Public Relations Campaigns class many times before; it's our capstone course in which students work with real clients to solve real PR problems. During the past few years the student teams have successfully begun to incorporate social media along with more traditional PR strategies and tactics to help their clients communicate with their target publics.

In addition to the team element, I like to include some additional project so that students have an opportunity to demonstrate their individual skills (and to help me sort out who's actually working hard). Years ago I made them take on an additional client -- internship, organization, etc.; more recently I had them participating on PROpenMic with a set of instructions such as friending so many people and writing so many blog posts. Last semester a number of the students complained (on PROpenMic, interestingly enough) about this assignment, asserting that they didn't like to be forced to use one particular site when there might be others they'd be more interesting in trying. One student, whose opinion I respected, even suggested that I let everyone pick their own platforms.

My initial reaction was "That's insane." I imagined myself trying to write up a list of potential platforms and grading criteria for each one, somehow making a Twitter assignment that takes equal work, knowledge and effort as a blog assignment and a video assignment (and so forth), and then going through all of these platforms attempting to grade all of these different projects fairly. 

Upon further reflection, though, I decided I didn't really have to do that. I just asked the students to create their own assignment. During the first week of class, I explained about the past PROpenMic assignment and told them they could use that platform if they chose, but also said that students had suggested letting everyone choose their own platform. I asked them to write a one-page proposal explaining their project and setting measurable objectives for the semester. 

The social media project accounted for 20% of their final grade in the course, and the students not only took it seriously, but thought big. They proposed things like starting a blog about politics "because I don't know anything about politics but know I should." I reviewed their proposals --most students chose blogging or Twitter; a few chose Facebook for organizations-- and spent a little time cutting back on unrealistic expectations (100 blog followers, for instance, or 500 Twitter followers) and giving suggestions as appropriate.

By the time midterm rolled around, many of the students realized that they weren't even going to be able to make these rolled-back objectives, but I asked them to continue and to try new approaches as appropriate. I also tried to help by linking to good blog posts or retweeting student accounts and so forth.

At the end of the semester, I asked students to turn in a 2-page (or so) summary of their initial objectives, steps they took to try to reach their objectives, and what happened in the end. I told them I was more interested in what they learned than in their actual statistics. The result included some of the quotes you see above. Students reported that participating in social media is difficult and time-consuming, requires commitment, and demands passion and focus far beyond what they expected.

Many of the students said they appreciated the assignment and were happy that I made them try something new in social media, although the fact that their grade hinged upon their summary report undoubtedly had something to do with that. Heh.

Requiring social media participation in classes

A discussion on PROpenMic this week reopened a question that educators have been debating for several years now: should students be required to participate in social media as a class assignment?

Reasons not to require it:

• Using social media means participating in a conversation with transparency and authenticity; can someone be "forced" to do that?
• Students should be using social media anyway, so there's no reason to make it a course requirement
• Requiring social media turns it into a "chore," which is not a good learning experience
• There are no set standards for what "good" participation should be; how can you grade it?
• Students sometimes show poor judgment in what they post, so requiring them to participate puts them in danger of harming their future career options

Reasons to require it:

• Social media are an increasingly important part of public relations practice, and students should practice using it with transparency and authenticity while in school so they are prepared to use it properly on the job
• Using social media personally (hanging out with friends on Facebook) is not the same as using it professionally, so students may not be as well prepared as they think
• Many of the assignments students do in school are "chores" -- would students practice doing surveys or writing news releases if they were not required?
• Teachers can create rubrics to explain how students will be graded, just as they do with other assignments, so that grading will be fair
• Students sometimes demonstrate poor judgment in what they post, so they'd better learn now what is appropriate and what is not; a poor grade or bad experience now is better than getting fired later; and using a closed platform like PROpenMic can help to limit the damage

You all know which side I come down on, since I've been requiring students to participate in various platforms for years now. But what do you think?

Addition: Be sure to read Tiffany Gallicano's important follow-up post on public participation.

Using PROpenMic in PR classes

Cross-posted from PROpenMic (I directed this post to other faculty on PROpenMic but thought Teaching PR readers who are not yet on PROpenMic might also be interested):

I've assigned participation on PROpenMic to several different classes over several semesters, with very little success in getting the students involved (to the point of taking points off final grades because they failed to participate adequately).

I made some changes to the assignment this semester that seemed to help and that have given me some other ideas for next semester -- thought I'd share in case any of you are having the same problems.

1. I gave students very specific guidelines about what "participation" means -- join at least 2 groups, write at least 2 blog posts, create a complete profile, post comments on at least five other blog posts (and not just students in our class), etc. This gave them a minimum to shoot for. Unlike past semesters, almost everyone got all the points for participation.

2. I contacted Prof. Jeanne Persuit at UNC-Wilmington when I realized that a lot of her students were posting, too. She came up with the idea of creating a group, Bulldogs + Seahawks, where our students could mix and mingle. She also had the idea of doing a "6 Random PR Things About Me" meme. She created the group, I wrote the questions and we each tagged a couple of students to get it going. The students seemed to comment mostly on the posts of students from their own school, but I think if we work on this again next semester we'll be able to get students to interact a bit more. I told students that participating in the 6 Random Things meme could take the place of one blog post; next semester I'll build "participate in at least one discussion" as a requirement in addition to the 2 blog posts. I think pairing up with another class at another school is a simple and non-intimidating way to get students interacting.

3. I know the students were primarily participating just to get their points, but it seemed to me that at the end of the semester, as the deadline loomed and a bunch of them were doing their blog posts and commenting on each others' posts, they did seem to get into it. Some of them made many more than 5 comments, some of them experienced the thrill of getting lots of comments on a post, and Magan Jenkins' ABC post was featured on the homepage. All of this can only encourage them to get more involved. So, next semester I'm going to try "A Week with PROpenMic" early in the semester in which everyone has to create their profile and write their first post. Maybe then they'll be more active throughout the semester instead of waiting until the end.

4. I'm following @PROpenMic on Twitter and will make a more concerted effort to check in and write comments on posts and participate in discussions. Richard Bailey was kind enough to comment on several of my students' posts, and I do think it's exciting for the students to get feedback from outside the class.

Teaching portfolio

My teaching portfolio is finally complete and up on the Grady Web site. Thanks to all who commented on my teaching philosophy last summer, both here and via e-mail.

Labels: education, teaching

Questions

One thing I know I need to improve as a teacher is my ability to lead discussions. This has always been a problem for me-- I will always remember teaching my first class as a graduate student and being stunned when the class ended after 40 minutes (instead of 75) because no one had anything to say. Prior to that I had thought discussions just happened. Fifteen years later I know that collaborative learning asks students to listen and learn from each other, but someone has to start the conversation and keep it moving-- and that would be me.

I recently read a chapter from Brookfield and Preskill's book, Discussion as a Way of Teaching, which was posted on Rick Reis's listserv for educators, Tomorrow's Professor (subscribe at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor). It lists several kinds of questions that can keep class discussions moving forward:

*Evidence questions (How do you know that?)
*Clarification questions (What do you mean? What's a good example of that?)
*Open-ended questions
*Linking or extension questions (How does your comment fit with what X said? Does your idea challenge or support what Y wrote?)
*Hypothetical questions (What if...?)
*Cause-and-effect questions
*Summary and synthesis questions (What are the 2 most important ideas? What ideas are still unresolved?)

The problem I will have is remembering these ideas once we're in the middle of a discussion--it's hard to pay attention to what the students are saying while at the same time thinking about where the conversation could or might go from here. Next time I'm planning a lecture-discussion, I'm going to try making a list of 2-3 of each of these kinds of questions so I can pull from it if the conversation slows.

What are your favorite questions? (Don't worry, that one was rhetorical!)

Teaching multicultural PR

Just finished reading Donnalyn Pompper's 2005 article on "Multiculturalism in the Public Relations Curriculum," for which she held focus groups with African-American women to find out what they thought about how multiculturalism is taught in PR classes.

"Topic guide probes regarding classroom attention to multicultural diversity met spontaneous laughter in each of the four cities, indicating that virtually no respondents had public relations classes that covered multicultural diversity in any way," she reported.

A list of a number of some suggestions the women made to improve teaching of diversity:

1. Hire more full-time faculty of color
2. Reach out to high-school students
3. Workshops or training sessions for faculty
4. Field trips to minority-owned agencies and guest lectures
5. Use multicultural cases and clients in class
6. Revise textbooks to include pictures/case studies involving ethnic groups
7. Teach business negotiation skills and interpersonal persuasion strategies for dealing with office politics
8. Ask PRSA and NBPRS to provide internships and mentoring

I think we're doing pretty well at UGA-- we maintain a list of multicultural project assignments, guest speakers, graduate student and faculty research, and campaigns clients that belies Pompper's conclusion-- but undoubtedly we can do more.

Item #1 is of particular concern. Of our 9 full-time PR faculty, only one is classified as a minority. Last year, when I chaired our search committee to find a new assistant professor, I made sure that we made a special effort to recruit minority candidates, right down to writing personal letters and contacting advisors to identify candidates, yet in the end there were very few qualified minority applicants. Obviously as a field we need to do a better job of recruiting minority graduate students to earn Ph.D.s and get out there and teach.

In the meantime, I really latched onto one thing Pompper's focus group members mentioned: the importance to several participants of African-American adjunct instructors. I intend to find out if we can tap into this market as a way of bringing diversity to our department.

Seeking comments: teaching philosophy

Several associate professors at Grady College are building teaching portfolios this summer. My goal in participating is to think about how I teach and what I can do to improve, because as a tenured professor I can afford to take risks and do some experimentation in the class room.

Our first step is to write a statement of teaching philosophy. Below is the draft I'm submitting to the group. It's long, but I welcome any comments, pro or con, while I have time to reflect and revise on it. The final version will (eventually) be posted on the Grady Web site. Here goes:

The dominant paradigm in public relations calls for symmetry between an organization and its publics. Based on Jurgen Habermas’ concept of an “ideal speech situation,” this paradigm suggests that even though an organization may be more powerful than its constituents, the relationship between them can still be ethical if the organization engages in real dialogue and relationship building with other groups. This model is normative, however, and rarely describes what actually happens in organizations. This is reflected in how public relations is usually taught: one study found that although the most popular PR textbooks all advocate symmetry, the majority of each book focuses on how to persuade publics to agree with the organization’s views.

In contrast, the “new PR” or “PR 2.0” stems from “social media” communication channels like blogging that allow for dialogue and collaborative decision-making between an organization and members of its publics. Its primary characteristics include conversation, transparency, loss of control, collaboration, multiple methods of message delivery, and authenticity. These characteristics mirror many of my beliefs about what happens in the classroom. In fact, to me, teaching is like the new PR.

As I see it, my responsibility as a teacher is to facilitate learning by developing a role for students in creating and sharing knowledge. Because I see learning as active and collaborative, I try to develop conversation between instructor and students, student and other students, and students and outside sources ranging from reference librarians to public relations professionals. For example, I regularly require students to work in teams, make oral presentations to classmates, post comments on weblogs about public relations, and write public relations materials based on current public relations cases or with actual clients.

Transparency in teaching refers to explaining to students what we’re doing and why. Sometimes this occurs in the classroom, as when I tell students which clients they’ll be working with or why we’re studying one organization rather than another. But it also happens on my blog, Teaching PR (www.teachingpr.blogspot.com), where I write about issues relating to teaching and where students, former students, and anyone else is free to comment on what I write. I have used the blog to develop assignments, discuss curricular issues, communicate with professionals, and even just complain. Transparency leads to another characteristic, however, that isn’t always easy: loss of control. As soon as I post on my blog, I lose control of what other people think or say about what I’ve written, and people frequently post comments disagreeing with what I’ve said. Of course, like a large corporation, a blogger never has had control of what people think or say; what’s different is that open communication by its nature invites criticism as well as praise. If people learn most through exchange, then the conversation should lead to better teaching over time.

Although my teaching load centers on undergraduate public relations courses, I have found that collaboration works in other classes as well. When I teach graduate seminars, whether on public relations or on media history, students are expected to produce original research, but I ask them to collaborate in the sense that throughout the semester they are given opportunities to share problems and ask each other questions about their work. These discussions range from advice on relevant communication theories to more mundane topics like how to search Internet databases more effectively. Whenever possible, I also offer students the opportunity to contribute to decision-making about which topics should be covered in a course and to follow up on things that interest them. After a seminar on PR management, for example, a group of five students worked with me on an independent study about catastrophe management, which included a trip to New York City to meet with experts on crisis communication.

One of the criticisms of the idea of “second-generation PR” is that it hasn’t really displaced the “old” PR. The practice is still grounded in persuasion; most people don’t use blogs or other social media; and most organizations aren’t willing to cede control of decision-making to collaborative conversations. This also applies to teaching. There are specific theories, principles, formats, and methods that students must learn in order to perform in their jobs and to understand the field. This means that the lecture-discussion format, like traditional PR methods, remains an important part of teaching, one that I certainly have not abandoned. However, I find PR 2.0’s emphasis on multiple methods of message delivery worthy of emulation. As I see it, my role is to present information, make resources available, point students in different directions, give a variety of assignments that require different types of learning, and allow students to take charge of their own education.

Active learning and collaborative learning are popular buzzwords now, and the use of the computer or Internet in teaching is frequently advocated as appealing to the current generation of students. I have always focused on “participation” or “hands-on” work, because this is inherent in public relations practice. This, to me, is where authenticity comes in. It seems only appropriate to me to push past participation to collaboration by granting at least some of the power in the classroom to the students. This can mean transparency in admitting, “I don’t know, but let’s find out,” or collaborative decision-making in giving the students an assignment and letting them take charge of how they will approach it with only minimal guidance from me. By modeling characteristics like conversation, transparency, and collaboration, I can show students how the new PR might work and at the same time teach them to think critically and creatively, employ a variety of tools and methods, and become confident in their own abilities to identify and solve problems—skills that should serve them in public relations and in life.

Teaching and the unteachables

I had no idea how critical PR professionals are of recent graduates until I started reading blogs. It's a little disheartening to go back and read some of the comments people have made, especially because I think Grady students are fantastic-- either they are, or I'm under their spell-- and I'd hire many of them in a flash.

I liked the recent posts by Marcel Goldstein and Kami Huyse because they focus on qualities that the students or recent graduates should develop rather than just complaining about what's wrong with students or undergraduate PR programs. Although I can certainly teach my students about tools and techniques, and reward them for thinking critically, qualities like studiousness and agility aren't teachable: they come from within. As an educator, all I can do is point out that employers think these qualities are important. The students have to take it from there.

Addition: A former student and recent graduate just sent me this op-ed on "seven habits" for PR newbies that was given to her by her employer.

5 things I hope my students learned

It seems unbelievable, but Maymester’s over. On the last day of class, I shared with my students a list of five things I hoped they had learned. Of course, they learned basics like how to write goals and objectives and what a timetable looks like. But as a course on management and strategy, my real goal was to get them to think big. CEO big. Even if they never get to be CEO—and I’m not betting against them—they can certainly think like one.

Here’s my list:

That organizations need help seeing and understanding their impact on their environment

That PR has an important function in society: helping organizations adjust and adapt to change

That organizations aren’t “good” or “evil,” but they do have both positive and negative impacts on society

That by being a part of the management team, PR can help to create a vision and organizational culture that are good for the organization and its publics

That the ideal speech situation and transparency are improbable but worthy ideals… and that both are important facets of PR 2.0

Prepping a class

This year I'm teaching PR Administration, which is our management/case studies course, during Maymester-- an entire semester's material in 3.5 weeks. The class meets every day for three hours, so each day is like a week in a regular semester.

Needless to say, it's a challenge to figure out how to teach this class. Several years ago, I tried just applying my regular syllabus and schedule, but I killed myself by leading lecture/discussions for 3 hours at a time and killed the students by asking them to keep up on a week's worth reading when they're already in class for half a day (more if they registered for two classes). So this year I'm trying something entirely new.

I'm focusing the class around one giant case. I don't think anyone will be surprised that it's Wal-Mart. They're so huge they've got fingers in every pot and problems for every area of PR practice (community relations, crisis management, employee relations, B2B, multiculturalism, etc. etc. etc.-- and, yes, social media... hello, Edel-Mart). We're reading Fishman's The Wal-Mart Effect, which I will supplement with articles, Websites, and videos on both sides, and I've already thought of a couple of creative assignments like dividing the class in half to prepare two news conferences, one by labor, the other by Wal-Mart.

I'm open to suggestions, but class starts Tuesday so make it quick!