Using a Public Relations Course to Build University Relationships.

In All the President's Men, Deep Throat directed Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money." Increasingly, journalism and mass communication programs are on the ropes, some to the point of obliteration, at various universities across the country (Beasley, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c; Carter, 1995; Turk, 1995). At the same time, these programs are playing catch up with university-wide efforts to emphasize fund raising, and "it is clear that no program will prosper without significant private contributions" in the 1990s (Anderson, 1994, p. 75). "Follow the money" may well serve as good advice to public relations programs seeking to strengthen their relationships inside and outside of the university. If public relations is truly in the business of relationship management (Pavlik, 1987), then perhaps public relations sequences can help improve these relationships through their own pedagogy. This paper reviews a case study of how a public relations sequence at the University of Georgia in Athens adopted the offices of development for the university and its own college as the "clients" for students enrolled in a Public Relations Campaigns course. Students in the class first conducted research among donors and non-donors to the college and the university. Then the students suggested a variety of communication strategies based on their research findings to encourage non-donors to give and donors to give more. In doing so, the students gained firsthand knowledge of fund-raising theory and practice. Having campaigns students work with "real" clients is not a new idea. What is exceptional about this case is the breadth and depth of the campaign and its unique outcome: as a direct result of the students' campaign, the public relations sequence has gained a new public relations laboratory funded by the university and the professional community. The students who conducted the campaign and their successors benefit, and the sequence and college strengthened their relationships with both constituencies. Literature review Great teachers are innovators who search creatively for more effective ways to teach their materials (Woodward, 1986). A review of recent literature on teaching techniques in public relations reveals varied as well as creative approaches. The techniques include developing an operations matrix extending Marston's 1963 R-A-C-E process model to include functions (Files, 1986); and modeling classes as student public relations agencies, working with real clients, which gives "students considerable anxiety at the outset but considerable confidence by semester's end" (Rayfield and Pincus, 1987,p. 45). Equally creative techniques involve: having students conduct research and produce detailed public relations plans for actual clients that expose the students' "novice" thinking to more "expert" views and experiences (Quarles, 1987, p. 441; having students conduct research and produce a strategic plan for a real client, then supervise implementation of the plan by others (Hunt, 1991); leading in-class group presentations about relevant course content (Weimer, 1991); and, applying cooperative learning models in class presentations of textbook case histories combined with actual campaign work with real clients (Slater, 1991). The use of client-based, case-study teaching techniques was found to increase tolerance of ambiguity among public relations students in a writing class (Sallot, 1992). Public relations educators also have reported good results in general with: tracking current public relations issues (Anderson, 1989); patterning action-reaction exercises after military education techniques to bridge gaps between theory and practice (Fleming, 1988); practicing actual research techniques, such as focus groups (Lederman, 1989) and other information-seeking behaviors (Bissland, 1989); analyzing pseudo-events designed to attract media (Larson, 1988); relying on student peer reviews to improve writing skills (Rayfield, 1988); and, simulating the "real world" by means of interactive computers (Pavlik, 1988). …