Public Relations from the Ivory Tower: Comparing Research Universities with Corporate/Business Models

Abstract

The study explored the practice of public relations in higher education. It measured the characteristics of public relations programs at a set of research universities against known characteristics of excellence in public relations in businesses and other organizations. It asked whether the chief public relations officers at the research universities highly value strategic-managerial characteristics and historical-technical ones, whether university structure or individual demographics affect chief public relations officers' perceptions of the characteristics, and whether the research universities provide support for excellent public relations. The data suggest that chief public relations officers at research universities do believe that the characteristics known to indicate excellence in public relations are very important; however those beliefs are not necessarily reflected by the priorities the public relations officers set. Also, the data show that the universities often exhibit the indicators of organizations and corporations that provide appropriate support for excellent public relations. Demographics affect chief public relations officers' perceptions in only a few areas, but they are interesting ones. For example, chief public relations officers with more experience outside of academia rate their universities' support for public relations programs higher than do those with more experience inside academia. There is also a difference in responses based on the placement of the public relations program within the university structure. Where there is a single vice-president with responsibility for both public relations and fund raising, the chief public relations officers rate the characteristics of excellence less highly than where there is separate vice-president for public relations and for fund raising. The results lead to further questions such as whether research universities are in transition from a more historical-technical model of public relations to a more strategic-managerial model, whether having separate vice-presidents for public relations and for fund raising will promote that transition and therefore increase public relations effectiveness, and whether universities actually provide more support to public relations when the chief public relations officers comes from outside of academe.