Teaching PR

Aside from teaching classes (these are some of the students from my Campaigns class celebrating the public support they helped drum up for OneAthens last night), we faculty have other responsibilities. For me that includes research, graduate student advising, and such public service as organizing the Connect conference. It's a busier life than you might think.

The great part about it, though, is that we have a lot of flexibility in choosing how we want to spend our time. I chose OneAthens as a client. I get to choose who gets invited to Connect. I decide which projects are interesting and worthy of research. So work becomes a labor of love.

I know some other PR educators who feel the same way. From my aggregator today alone, check out PR Open Mic, Robert French's new social network for PR educators and students, and Behind the Spin, Richard Bailey's online magazine for students and young professionals (be sure to check the editorial calendar, too). It strikes me that collaborative media are allowing us PR educators to teach people outside our schools, and to do a bit of learning ourselves.

Labels: campaigns, education, public relations, students