PRR 501. Principles and Theories of Public.3 Credits.
Students are introduced to the growing body of knowledge in the discipline and gain expertise that contributes to professional competence in public relations. Students examine the function of public relations in organizations and society, review contemporary and historical roles of public relations professionals and explore the practice of public relations in various public and private settings. Students also learn the latest theoretical approaches to public relations and apply these approaches to contemporary public relations management practices.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall
PRR 502. Public Relations Research Methods.3 Credits.
This course examines the applied use of research in public relations program development. Students learn methodologies appropriate for conducting secondary analyses and primary research. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are addressed, such as secondary analysis, content analysis, survey research, focus groups, participant observation, case study and experimentation.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall
PRR 504. Law and Ethics in Public Relations.3 Credits.
Students become familiar with legal and industry standards for legally and ethically practicing public relations. The course aims to instill an appreciation for freedom of expression and the First Amendment; to impart a functional understanding of legal rules and principles relevant to public relations practice in the U.S.; to enhance students' ability to identify the moral and ethical dimensions of issues that arise in public relations practice; and to develop analytical and critical thinking skills that encourage students to make and justify ethical decisions.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall
PRR 505. Public Relations Writing.3 Credits.
This course helps students develop professional-quality public relations writing skills. Students prepare a variety of public relations materials, such as news releases and other media materials; copy for internal magazines, reports, newsletters, brochures, institutional/advocacy advertising; video/audio scripts; web site copy; and speeches. Upon completion of this course, students have a professional portfolio of public relations writing samples.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Spring
PRR 506. Public Relations Management.3 Credits.
This course focuses on the business management aspects of public relations, such as policy formation, project direction, resource management, client relations, budgeting and counseling. Special emphasis is placed on public relations' contribution to an institution's mission and effectiveness.
Prerequisites: Take STC 501 or PRR 501
Offered: Every year, Spring
PRR 507. Strategic Planning in Public Relations.3 Credits.
This course familiarizes students with the public relations strategic planning process. Students examine contemporary case studies that demonstrate the public relations planning process and apply what they have learned to the development and presentation of a public relations campaign plan for a client.
Prerequisites: Take PRR 501.
Offered: As needed
PRR 510. Crisis Management.3 Credits.
This course examines institutional crisis communication from a management perspective with an emphasis on crisis prevention, planning and response. Students are required to read and discuss selected articles from the crisis management literature, research and develop case studies of contemporary crises, and participate in simulations designed to develop professional expertise and practical skills in crisis management, including the management of information, management of public communication, strategic planning, problem solving, message production and issues management.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 511. Global Strategy.3 Credits.
This course examines concepts, issues and practices in international public relations across the borders and focuses on the challenges, opportunities, and the worldwide development of public relations. The course aims to inform you about the variables that affect public relations practice in the international realm and assist you in understanding of other countries' domestic public relations given the various cultures, geopolitical and socio-economic systems. Participants look closely at how governments, corporations, multinationals and nongovernmental organizations employ international public relations strategies around the world. Students also examine similarities between international public relations and public diplomacy and the effects of international public relations on images of nations.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 512. Investor Relations.3 Credits.
Students study the function of investor relations in corporations and examine the role of investor relations specialists charged with communicating financial information about companies to the financial media, SEC, financial analysts, shareholders and others in the financial community. Students learn how to integrate finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance in efforts to maximize shareholder wealth.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 513. Health & Strategic Communications.3 Credits.
In this course, students are exposed to the field of strategic health communications, with particular attention to analysis and practice of health communication relationships and messages. Issues to be discussed include, but are not limited to: history and current challenges of the health communication field; health campaign creation, implementation and evaluation; cultural issues related to health behavior change campaigns; translational research; traditional and social media training for health care professionals; and perspectives of media influence on health attitudes, norms and behaviors.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 514. Public Relations and New Media.3 Credits.
This course addresses the impact of new media on public relations. It focuses on conducting public relations campaigns online and responding to public relations issues via new media, such as social networking and bookmarking sites, blogs, podcasts/vodcasts, discussion boards and conferences, wikis and mobile media.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, All
PRR 515. Special Topics in Public Relations.3 Credits.
This course examines a specific topic or issue in public relations theory and practice. Topics might focus on specific practice areas such as sports public relations, employee relations, political public relations, public diplomacy, nonprofit public relations, or on industry issues and trends, such as the uses and impact of new technologies, professional ethics and corporate social responsibility or the integration of communication practices.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed, Fall and Spring
PRR 516. Branding Strategies.3 Credits.
This course explores strategies used by planners, communicators, managers and consultants to create, develop, nurture, maintain and reenergize brands. This course helps students understand the main idea of branding: developing, defending and growing brands for companies, agencies or nonprofits. It explores the essential elements of branding, including target audiences and segmentation, brand benefits, brand personality, differentiation and key brand equities. It also surveys conceptual approaches for the diagnosis of brand growth opportunities and for planning integrated brand communications.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 517. Strategic Comm for Health Professionals.3 Credits.
In this course, graduate students are exposed to the field of strategic health communication. In particular, students are asked to consider the role of health communication messages in internal, organizational settings, as well as outward-facing messages. Unique to this graduate-level strategic communication course, the students are expected to have minimal to no experience in the field of strategic communication. Instead, the overview of the field provided through this course seeks to encourage understanding of how the theories, practices and evaluations of health communication should be incorporated within their areas of health expertise.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 518. Measurement & Evaluation.3 Credits.
This course focuses on the development of knowledge and skills to ensure that students are able to use data to make business decisions. Students consider key concerns of measurement to determine if measurement tools are effective and appropriate for a project's goals, as well as how to make sense of data to measure success of a project and how to display findings for various audiences. The course is focused on the principles and process of utilizing research to best serve your client's or organization's goals. Main topics for the course include measurement development and refinement, online data analytics, audience segmentation, data interpretation and data visualization.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall and Spring
PRR 519. Strategic Public Relations.3 Credits.
The focus of this course is reputation management and its importance to business success. Students analyze the function of corporate communications and examine a range of topics including organizational identity, image and reputation; issues and crisis management; institutional ethics and corporate social responsibility; strategic public relations planning; integrated marketing communication; public relations theories and best practices; and global public engagement. The class also explores specialty public relations practice areas such as media relations, investor relations, employee relations and government relations. Class discussions, case studies, in-class exercises, team projects and essay exams help students improve their critical thinking and reasoning skills, develop research and strategic planning skills and increase diversity awareness and sensitivities that are important to professional and business success.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 520. Sports Public Relations.3 Credits.
This class is a comprehensive review of sports event planning and management. Students examine such topics as strategic planning, budgeting and time management.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 521. Corporate Public Relations.3 Credits.
This course provides students with the knowledge and skills required for positions in the corporate sector. Topics include media relations, employee communication, community relations, investor relations, and crisis communication. Students hone their written communication and critical thinking skills in this class.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 522. Nonprofit Public Relations.3 Credits.
This course is appropriate for students who want to learn how to develop and implement comprehensive public relations campaigns for nonprofit organizations. It highlights the structures and nuances of the various types of NPOs and examines case studies and present-day scenarios. The course requires the development of a public relations campaign, and culminates in crafting a case study assessing the effectiveness of an assigned NPO's public relations campaign.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 523. Media Systems and Planning.3 Credits.
In this course, students learn about traditional as well as new and emerging technologies, with particular emphasis on their strengths and weaknesses as message carriers. Discussions include an overview of commonly used metrics and sources of data in the advertising and communications industries. Students then use this knowledge to plan and budget for integrated communication plans that capitalize on paid, earned and owned outlets.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 525. Financial Communications and Business.3 Credits.
This course provides students with a holistic view of public relations and corporate communications management, as well as strategic planning for organizational change and growth. It covers various styles and functions of management and leadership theory and introduces key principles of marketing, branding, risk management, ethics, and finance. Throughout the course, students develop the ability to work between crucial agency organizational departments.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 531. Graduate Internship in Public Relations.3 Credits.
Students complete a minimum of 90 hours of professional fieldwork supervised by the program director and a qualified field supervisor. Approval of the program director is required.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, All
PRR 540. Strategic Communications Abroad.3 Credits.
This multi-section course introduces students to the worldwide development of communications, including communication practices, infrastructure, environments, and specializations. Students conduct primary and secondary research on communications in a particular country or cross-cultural context. The topics can range from international strategic communication through storytelling, global branding, and design, depending on the specialty of the instructor. This course includes a short-term study-abroad component directly related to the topic of the course, where students will be able to expand their skills and knowledge in a new environment. A strategic communication graduate-level final project is required.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 547. Entertainment Public Relations.3 Credits.
This course reviews and applies the established RPIE (Research, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation) process to the field of entertainment public relations in the context of such industries as music, movies, TV, theater, gaming, and sports. The distinctions between and among advertising, publicity, public relations, marketing, and promotion, in addition to how they can work together to support a specific goal, are highlighted.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 549. Media Relations.3 Credits.
This course gives students an understanding of the priorities and expectations of various types of contemporary media and how to successfully engage them through research-based strategies and tactics designed to reach key audiences. At the conclusion of the course, students should be well-practiced in various forms of working with journalists and the public via multiple media.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
PRR 551. Social Media Analytics.3 Credits.
This course familiarizes students with the role of analytics in digital communication strategies and social media account management. Students are introduced to the growing body of research on digital communication analytics, including social listening, social monitoring, attribution modeling, A/B testing, and data visualization. Key case examples of malicious data harvesting and data misuse are used to explore the importance of ethical data utilization in campaigns. Students finish this course with an understanding of the magnitude of social media on different elements of society and how social media analytics are used to recognize and solve problems across many industries.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year, Spring
PRR 552. Access/Diversity/Inclusion in Soc Media.3 Credits.
This course introduces best practices for creating social media content with optimized accessibility for disabled audiences, as well as improving diversity representation in the development and delivery of social media content. Students learn approaches for critically evaluating campaign strategies and individual social media messages for accessibility, diversity, and inclusion, and are empowered with knowledge of tools to improve campaign messages.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year, Fall
PRR 553. Social Media Content Strategy.3 Credits.
This course addresses the strategic development of content across various social media platforms to meet key publics where they're active with material that takes advantages of the specific affordances of each platform. The course will consider addressing issues and crises as they arise, pivoting in response to public concerns, and gaining management buy-in on response strategies.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year, Spring
PRR 605. Public Relations Grad Capstone.3 Credits.
Students develop a professional research project under the direction of program faculty. The project work should exhibit KSAs and/or serve as PRSA Readiness Review preparation.The capstone project is a personally designed, independently conducted activity, enabling students to further their knowledge/skill in one or more of the course topics that students have found especially interesting or beneficial. Permission of instructor required.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Spring and Summer
PRR 606. Independent Study.3 Credits.
Students develop and implement individual research projects that advance understanding of particular theoretical or practical aspects of public relations. Approval of the program director is required.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed