Each year the PRSSA has a competition to see which school can come up with the best campaigns for a desired client.
This year the theme focuses on diversity in the public relations field and bringing more people from a diverse background into the fold.
Temple Update spoke to the team in charge of bringing diversity to the Public Relations field from our very own Klein School of Media and Communications.
Rose Mcbride told us about her experience: “I’m starting to realize things that were right in front of me I didn’t necessarily recognize because it didn’t really affect me. Our campaign is centered all around diversity, and as someone who is not a person of color, it’s been really eye-opening to see all the things that are happening right in front of me. To raise people’s voices, and to just start a dialog about the injustices and inequity that’s right in front of all of us.”
Rose and her team have been working on their campaign for a year now, and are finally going to see the fruits of their labors soon. Their advisor, Professor David Brown, has guided them through this entire process.
Professor Brown has been in the Public Relations field for over 20 years. We got the chance to sit down and speak with him about his involvement and what he sees as a success coming from the competition.
“I’ve seen some success coming from the competition in that I think there’s a greater awareness for the need of diversity in Public Relations, and in most communications disciplines whether its television, radio, public relations, advertising. African Americans, Latinos, people of LGBTQ persuasion are underrepresented in these areas, so diversity is something that we consider to be a challenge, but also represents an opportunity to expose people to the field, while at the same time have the field reflect the complexion of the country and the world because communications is a global discipline. So, we need to be more reflective of what happens globally in terms of different opportunities for different people.
The Bateman Competition won’t be wrapping up anytime soon, with the team just finishing their campaign implementation with their Diverse Voices panel featuring 40 diverse profiles from the Public Relations field and abroad.
If chosen, the team will find themselves competing in New York City for the top spot of this year’s Bateman Competition.
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