Preparing today's students for tomorrow's PR careers

Abstract

The survey of professionals in the San Francisco Bay area shows that the practitioners think that (1) journalistic skills, (2) the liberal arts and (3) business courses should be emphasized in a public relations curriculum under the auspices of a journalism of communications department. In addition, there is strong pressure for providing students with the opportunity for supervised practicums and internships. Public relations majors at San Jose State University, for example, are required to have a 240-hour working internship under a professional practitioner as a requirement for graduation. The survey is instructive in that it gives public relations educators an opportunity to better structure programs that will meet the needs of today's employment market. The importance of writing skill is strongly reinforced and attempts must be made to strengthen this area of competence. It is not enough, however, for public relations majors to simply enroll in more news writing courses where the emphasis is on obituaries, accidents, weddings and city council meetings. Additional courses must be implemented that will give students an opportunity to handle stories that public relations professionals must write on a daily basis. Students also must be taught the mechanics of writing for a variety of media, not just newspapers. Perhaps the major dilemma facing public relations educators is reconciling the need for public relations students to have a broad liberal arts background and an increased number of business courses. Only so many courses are available to a student in a four-year degree program. The other obstacle deals with the present accreditation procedures of ACEJ for departments of journalism.5 The basic guideline calls for a curriculum based on 75 per cent liberal arts and 25 per cent professional (journalism) training. This means that the average student probably received no more than four in-depth writing courses in his or her college career because such courses are considered part of the overall professional emphasis. Business also is considered a professional area and public relations majors are actively discouraged from minoring in the field if the department values its accreditation. Thus, there appears to be a basic conflict between accreditation requirements and the needs of employers for qualified PR professionals. Perhaps the time has come for public relations programs to be evaluated for accreditation on somewhat different criteria than news-editorial sequences. Public relations curricula also can be strengthened by the active participation of the professional practitioners in the classroom as guest speakers and on departmental advisory committees. Many departments already have established advisory committees to make suggestions about public relations education and, in these days of limited financial support for higher education, help lobby for increased academic resources. This survey shows that there is a widespread interest and concern about public relations education. In most cases, public relations personnel are eager and willing to participate in the process of educating today's students for tomorrow's careers. They are a valuable resource and should be utilized.