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School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

Posts Tagged ‘pr’

UM students sweep awards from Public Relations Association of Mississippi

Posted on: April 20th, 2018 by ldrucker

University of Mississippi public relations students and recent graduates swept the awards in the Public Relations Association of Mississippi student competition, with one student winning overall Best in Show.

Only 14 total students from around the state won awards, and UM students from the Meek School of Journalism and new Media won 12 of those.

In addition, a 30-member student committee led by Senior Lecturer Robin Street won an award of excellence in the professional category for the anti-stereotyping campaign called It Starts with (Me)ek they created for the Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

University of Mississippi public relations students and recent graduates swept the Public Relations Association of Mississippi Prism individual student competition recently, and some won, along with Senior Lecturer Robin Street, as a team in the professional category for the It Starts with (Me)ek campaign they created for the Meek School. Pictured from left, are some of those winners: (front row, kneeling) Kat Balmes, Addie Guida and Kendrick Pittman. Second row: Bianca Abney, Alexa Hart, Street, Parker Maloney, Alex Hicks and Kaitlin Childress. Back row: Zack McEwen, Clifton Carroll, Kayla Beatty and Kelly Zeidner. Photo credit: Stan O’Dell

The awards were presented at the PRAM state conference in Starkville on April 13.

“Entries submitted by students from the University of Mississippi highlighted their extraordinary skills, and I have no doubt that each of these students will be successful as a public relations professional,” said Christen Duhé, PRAM’s vice president of awards. “Their level of professionalism is very impressive.”

The students entered public relations campaigns they produced in Street’s advanced class during 2017. Each campaign required multi-faceted skills, including writing news articles, shooting video and photos, planning creative attention-getting events, conducting research and creating online and social media posts.

“I already knew how outstanding these students are, but I was delighted that the judges recognized that also,” Street said. “Our students demonstrated that they excel in the diverse set of skills needed in today’s public relations profession. That is a tribute to the preparation they received from all the faculty members at the Meek School.”

Awards were given at three levels, based on the number of points judges award each entry. The top award is the Prism, followed by the Excellence and Merit awards. Multiple students can win in the same category if they earn the required number of points. The entry with the highest number of points is named Best in Show.

Addie Guida, a public policy major and journalism minor from Gulfport, won Student Best in Show and the Prism in her category. The judges, who remain anonymous, praised her work highly.

“This campaign is planned extraordinarily well,” one judge wrote on Guida’s entry. “I was incredibly impressed by the level of detail provided. It’s clear a lot of time and effort went into this work, and it’s a shining example of a well-developed integrated communications plan.”

Dixie McPherson, an integrated marketing communications May 2017 graduate from Tupelo, also won a Prism award. The judge’s comment on her entry read, “Perfect! This is how it’s done.”

Excellence winners were Amanda Hunt, an IMC December 2017 graduate from Ocean Springs; Mike Haskins, an IMC major from Senatobia; Clifton Carroll, an IMC major from Yazoo City; and Alexa Hart, an IMC December 2017 graduate from Searcy, Arkansas.

Merit winners were Grace Bacon, an IMC May 2017 graduate from Fairhope, Alabama; Kat Balmes, a marketing and corporate relations major from Brandon; Kelly Zeidner, an IMC major from Fort Mill, South Carolina; Parker Maloney, a marketing and corporate relations major from Clinton; Alexa Arguedas, an IMC May 2017 graduate from Madison; and Kaitlin Childress, an IMC major from Brandon.

Childress was also a member of the 30-student team winning a professional Excellence award for the It Starts with (Me)ek campaign. Also representing the team were Bianca Abney, an IMC graduate student from Moss Point; Kayla Beatty, a journalism major from Ocean Springs; Alex Hicks, an IMC graduate student from Meridian; Zach McEwen, an IMC major from McComb; and Kendrick Pittman, an IMC major from Kosciusko.

For more information on the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, visit their website at https://jnm.olemiss.edu or email MeekSchool@olemiss.edu.

UM students and alumni well represented at Public Relations Association of Mississippi conference

Posted on: April 16th, 2018 by ldrucker

Meek School students and alumni were well represented at the recent Public Relations Association of Mississippi conference, most of whom are Senior Lecturer Robin Street’s former students.

Front row, from left, Paul Katool, Bianca Abney, Kendrick Pittman, Robin Street, Mary Margaret Turner Busby and UM alum Rob Pettit.

Back row, from left, Emily Blackwell Pickering, Jace Ponder, Alex Hicks, Selena Standifer, Ryan Whittington and Brian Von Foregger.

UM PR students win top award from Southern PR Federation: Lantern award recognizes It Starts with (Me)ek campaign

Posted on: October 2nd, 2017 by ldrucker

A Meek School of Journalism and New Media campaign asking students to “just pause” before stereotyping others has won a top award from the Southern Public Relations Federation.

The Lantern award was presented in the internal communications category at the Southern Public Relations Federation conference in Tupelo Sept. 26. Awards are presented at three levels in multiple categories, and the Lantern is the highest level.

The winning campaign, It Starts with (Me)ek, was created and implemented by a team of 31 students led by Senior Lecturer Robin Street. Judges for the competition repeatedly praised the “great job” the team did.

ISWM was a week of speakers, programs and communications encouraging inclusion and respect while rejecting stereotypes based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, mental health, religion or other factors. UM alumnus Shepard Smith spoke at two of the events.

A Meek School anti-stereotyping campaign won a top honor, the Lantern award, from the Southern Public Relations Federation. Pictured here are some of the 31 Meek students who served on the campaign committee under the leadership of Senior Lecturer Robin Street, far right. Front, from left, IMC major Kaitlin Childress from Brandon and IMC graduate student Bianca Abney from Moss Point. Back, from left IMC majors Kendrick Pittman from Kosciusko and Zacchaeus McEwen from McComb, with journalism graduate student Chi Kalu from Nigeria. Photo by Stan O’Dell.

Student committee members enrolled in an integrated marketing communications course helped create the campaign. They met weekly to plan events, videos, communications, competitions and social media posts.

“Our students worked for months to plan and implement all the components of the campaign,” said Street, who taught the class. “They spent every Wednesday night in class and countless additional hours working on their individual tasks and assignments. I was so proud to see all their hard work and true dedication be recognized.”

Scott Fiene, assistant dean for curriculum and assessment and assistant professor, directs the IMC program at the Meek School. He attended the award ceremony with Street and several students.

“Our student team entered in the professional category,” Fiene said. “So they were judged, not by student criteria, but by professional standards. I noticed that they were the only students to win a professional award that night.  The award exemplifies how well all our faculty prepare our students for their careers in journalism, public relations and integrated marketing communications.”

For more information on the Meek School, visit meek.olemiss.edu.

New Course: Former UM student will teach students the psychology of sales in May

Posted on: March 30th, 2017 by ldrucker

Selling things involves psychology.

How do you get people to buy your product?

Why would they want to buy what you’re selling?

Those are two of the problems a new course offered by the Meek School of Journalism and New Media’s Integrated Marketing Communications Department will address in May.

IMC 362 Introduction to Sales will be taught by special guest Joe George, who has worked with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc., a global media consulting firm.

George said he wants students to learn “that sales is an admirable profession, and that selling is a part of our everyday lives. Also, I want them to learn that no one wants to be ‘sold’ anything. But everyone loves to buy. What they buy is what the course is all about.”

George, according to his Facebook page, attended North Panola High School (in Mississippi) and the University of Mississippi. In the past, he was a lecturer at the Tippie School of Business at University of Iowa. 

“He taught during intersession a few years ago to rave reviews, and is coming back to Oxford in May to do it again,” said Scott Fiene, program director and assistant professor of integrated marketing communications.

Fiene said the course will cover the selling process.

“It will focus on identifying the real problems in a sales situation and review how to bring the right skills to bear on those problems at the right time,” he said. “It will cover the ‘how to’ and the ‘why to,’ and is based on information generated by the behavioral sciences.

“In other words, it looks at why people do the things they do, and how to use this knowledge to your advantage when placed in a selling situation.”

George once worked with Frank N. Magid Associates, a leading research-based strategic consulting firm that helps clients become profitable by solving problems and helping them take advantage of opportunities.

According to the company website, Magid strives to bring unique frameworks for solving problems and seizing opportunities to each engagement.

“We are unique because, for 53 years, we have carefully studied human behavior and how communication affects it,” the website reads. “We possess an uncanny understanding of what and how marketing and communication will motivate people to behave in certain ways. This understanding provides us with a unique consumer lens through which we approach each engagement.”

Magid leaders say they use their “expertise to help clients develop and market products and services and make investment decisions that align with consumer attitudes and expected behaviors.”

The company has offices in Minnesota, New York, Iowa, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas.

George once worked as a lecturer at the Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa. Tippie has 3,000 students and six academic departments, including accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management and organizations and management sciences. They have 48,000 alumni and are growing.

The Tippie College of Business was established eight years after the University of Iowa in 1847, according to the school website. The first “business” course offered there was Moral Philosophy, which examined the political economy, a subject that evolved to later include modern economics, finance, and commerce.

For more information about the IMC 362 Introduction to Sales course or other courses offered by the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, contact Fiene at safiene@olemiss.edu and visit the Meek School website at https://jnm.olemiss.edu for more information about our programs.

  • Story by LaReeca Rucker, adjunct journalism instructor