PR-Bridge

The disparity between what communications students and business students learn in the classroom is immense, though there are some critical overlaps, at least from the communications side of the fence. Basically, mass communications students are required to take some introductory-level business classes, while business students are often shut out of our classes due to the entrance requirements in many journalism and mass comm departments.

Despite that business students often take no formal communications classes, they still somewhere in their curriculum pick up enough to assume that they understand public relations, advertising, etc. While it may seem insignificant for 22-year olds marching across a stage to pick up their diplomas, the lack of actual training versus the opposite notion leads to ramifications that are negative for budding executives and communicators.

Assessing the “challenges” in overcoming this issue, the best option seems to be beefing up the business-side of the communications curriculum, primarily due to the silo nature of higher education. My experience is that business school faculty and their colleagues from mass communications and communications rarely work together for the good of the whole. [Though I am hoping I find a different situation here at Kent State] Creating future public relations professionals who have a greater understanding of business management (beyond the basic introductory classes, which are often large lectures) will enable those new communicators to prove that they can “talk the talk” with their business colleagues.

My own experiment with infusing my courses with more business management perspective has been ongoing for the five years I taught at the University of South Florida and continues now as I transition to teaching graduate classes in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State. My self-assessment is that the effort at USF lead to some better basic understanding of business, particularly when it came to introducing my students to integrated marketing communications.

At Kent State, I am upping the ante significantly in a graduate-level class this semester: “Public Relations Management.” Traditionally, the class is taught as a glorified case study-centered course, focusing on having the students create a strategic plan for a local nonprofit organization. While I do not denigrate those that follow this format — there is certainly value in it for PR grad students who have little practical knowledge — where is the “management” aspect in that scenario?

Instead, I ask the students to actually engage with strategic management thinkers and to look at the business environment from an executive position. As I set up the course, I found it shockingly easy to find material that provided accessible executive viewpoints. Using the Harvard Business Review, I have them read Peter F. Drucker, arguably the greatest management mind in recent history, and other pieces that address how c-level businesspeople think, feel, and make decisions.

In both my professional and academic careers, one recurring criticism of public relations and communicators I hear (particularly from executives) is that the agency, company communicators, etc., “don’t understand my business.” Though I personally see this as a challenge on the part of the executive as much as the communicators, it is my hope that introducing my students to some innovative business thinking and theory will help them look at business challenges as business challenges and not just communications challenges.

In discussions with educators, I often use the analogy that we are all some version of Johnny Appleseed, spreading seeds of knowledge that our students will go out and grow. My march continues…in a future post I’ll share the sproutlings.