Educators and working PR professionals rapped The Princeton Review's advice that college students interested in PR should take liberal arts and writing courses rather than PR courses.

What the field needs is people who can "communicate well in print, in person and on the phone," said the Review, which claims that one-half of those bound for college consult one or more of its products.

These include preparation for the SAT and other tests, an annual listing of the "best" colleges, and an annual ranking of the "best" party colleges.

The Review was founded in 1981 by Princeton grad John Katzman but has no connection to Princeton.

However, Benita Steyn, PR professor at Cape Peninsula University, South Africa, said the Princeton name gives credibility to the Review's opinions and "Nobody knows it's not the University's own publication." What was written "would be acceptable on a blog but not in the career section of any publication," she added.

Joe Trahan

Joe Trahan, Ph.D., chair of the Educators Academy of the PR Society, said: "How dare you send me this stuff? The Princeton Review people evidently know absolutely nothing about PR education today."

He noted PR degree programs approved by the Society put "heavy emphasis on liberal arts education" and PR Student Society graduates "are superb communicators who conduct solid research-unlike your Princeton friends-and solve problems daily worldwide!"

Donald Wright, Ph.D., professor of PR in the College of Communication, Boston University, said the Review was incorrect in saying that PR students don't get a "broad education."

Only one year of a four-year program is usually devoted to communications and PR courses and "many PR graduates wind up taking more liberal arts courses than liberal arts majors."

There are plenty of vocational courses in medical, law, nursing, engineering and other professional schools, he added.

Donald Wright

The article, he continued, appears to contradict what is said about PR on some other pages of the Review. [A section under Major: Public Relations, quotes Kent State University as saying PR is "the strategic manager of communication and relationships between organizations and their key publics" and describes numerous skills needed to practice it].

He also said the author should be identified.

Ray Kotcher, CEO of Ketchum, holds a Master's Degree in PR from BU, Wright noted, and Jon Iwata, SVP of communications at IBM, majored in PR at San Jose State University.

"I wonder if the author of this article is as successful as Ray or Jon?" he asked.

Commission on PR Education Comments

Dean Kruckeberg, Ph.D., PR professor, University of Northern Iowa, and John Paluszek, senior counsel at Ketchum, who are co-chairs of the PR Society's Commission on PR Education, found the Review's take on PR to be "rather limited and somewhat negative."

John Paluszek

The 2006 Commission report, "The Professional Bond…PR and the Practice" (http://www.commpred.org/) says "coursework in PR should be built on a foundation of liberal arts, social science, business and language courses."

Kruckeberg and Paluszek point out that the report stresses "the need for excellent writing skills."

The Professional Bond, they note, says that "PR must be interdisciplinary and broad, particularly in the liberal arts and sciences." The report outlines how such an education can be structured.

Jay Rayburn, associate professor, Dept. of Communications, Florida State Univ., said, 'It is apparent that the person who wrote this article knows nothing about PR."

A good PR education, he said, teaches not only writing skills but "PR management, analysis of PR cases, the legal issues facing the profession, the research methodologies professionals use, ethics, and much more."

English and journalism majors do not have the benefit of such courses, he said.

Tom Harris Agrees with Review

Tom Harris

Tom Harris, co-founder of Golin Harris, author of The Marketer's Guide to PR, and who taught 14 years in the master's program in Integrated Marketing Communications at the Medill School of Journalism of Northwestern University, said he "agreed 100%" with the Review.

Said Harris: "I wouldn't waste my precious time in undergraduate school on vocational subjects like advertising or PR. This is the greatest time in life for young people to learn about the world in which we live and work. I was an English major at the University of Michigan and always looked kindly on English majors when I was hiring college grads."

He said "College should be about learning to think, solve problems and communicate" but life should not be "all work." He urged undergrads to take some courses in art and music.

Subjects like psychology, sociology, history, political science and economics are "invaluable to an educated person," he added.

Past Pres. of CPRS Comments

Jean Valin, past president of the Canadian PR Society, said PR pros must speak out more if they are to change the perception PR that was presented in the Review.

Valin, whose remarks were one of a number of comments on prconversations.com about the Princeton Review article, asked: "How often have we taken positions on controversial issues? Are we vigilant about the abuses that take place and are we quick to explain what PR is really all about?"

He said it is "overly simplistic to equate what we do to image-making and to dismiss our profession as one that engages in less than honest practices."

Falcone Sees Ethics Problems in PR

Toni Muzi Falcone, past president of the Italian PR Assn., said the Review article should motivate the American and PR communities to "ask what is wrong with their current approach and how and when it intends to correct it?"

He noted that a 2005 Harris Interactive poll conducted for the PR Society found that 85% of consumers in the weighted poll agreed that "PR professionals may sometimes take advantage of the media to present misleading information that is favorable to their clients" and that 79% believe PR pros "are only interested in disseminating information that helps their clients make money."

The Harris/PRS poll "blatantly contradicts what we say and presumably believe what we are all about," said Muzi.

J-Schools Needed "Cash Cow"

Several PR pros commented that PR courses were introduced to journalism schools to boost flagging enrollment and the current trend is to combine journalism, PR, marketing and speech courses under a "communications department" to save administrative costs.

Some professors noted that there are "far more students majoring in PR today than there are jobs for them when they graduate."

The shortage of PR jobs appeared to be one reason a group of PR professors and 21 ex-presidents of the PR Society petitioned the Society not to allow on the agenda of the 2002 Assembly a bylaw change that would have let students join the Society from any college.

A deal supposedly was made allowing decoupling of the Assembly from APR as long as the "at-large" student proposal was never brought up again. This has been the case.

The Princeton Review says there are 4,000 colleges. The 2007 College Handbook lists 2,140 four-year colleges and 1,660 two-year community colleges and technical schools.

PRS's Student Society has chapters in 286 colleges and a total of 9,600 members. The Review estimates there are eight million undergraduates.

Mailing houses list 118,000 college-level "teachers of English." There are about 350 members of the Educators Academy of PRS.

No comment on the Princeton Review article could be obtained from Rhoda Weiss, president of PRS, Bill Murray, COO, or Janet Troy, VP-PR.

toni muzi falconi (8/30):
How legitimate and at which stage of the process is public relations to enter into an education process?

This is one positive way of looking at this debate which is also continuing on http://www.prconversations.com/ as well as this blog.

My perspective is one of a professional with 45 year of experience, who for the last 10 years has also been teaching public and global relations at undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, masters and phd levels in Europe and the Usa.

I agree with those who say that all undergraduates in their first two years of higher education (even if they are studying Science, let alone English or Liberal Arts...) should at least be made aware of what public relations is about and how pervasive its practice has become today; how and what forms public opinion; how to always ask oneself why and where all the information we are bombarded with truly comes from.

If not for a future career in the field, this will help students to detect who is trying to sway their opinions, behaviours and decisions in day to day life; why; and allow them to protect themselves from a perfectly legitimate activity which, differently from other activities, is not always immediately perceivable, and therefore, in my view, should be regulated in the public interest (as with doctors, lawyers, accountants) by a license to operate.

For many, just understanding this may eventually (and also appropriately) motivate them in deciding, in their last two years of college, to major in the subject.

If, in turn, the major period also included organizational, management, public policy process and marketing subjects, although not sufficient to enter directly in the profession (if not following mandatory practical internship in an organization), it might well lead some to master in the subject.

At that point, at a postgraduate level, it makes sense to go full into an articulated public relations course which should for the first year look into the profession, its history, its processes, its ethics, its models, its many different practices and challenges and for the second year adapt these, by student choice, to different types of organizations (social, public and private sector).

At this point the entry into the profession would surely be a serious one and in a sufficiently quick period of time the reputation of our profession would significantly improve. It couldn't be worse now, so why not profit from this Princeton Review incident and start now?

PR Godfather, APR, PRSA Fellow (8/30):
PR educators are the worst source of advice available. Most have never had any meaningful experience in the "field" (profession). Those who have the experience have been "drummed out" by most market standards.

Princeton Review is an independent source of information that has built its reputation on the "Princeton" in its name but hasn't claimed to be anything other than what it is.

The non-issue here is that no organization is "accepted" as the the source of entry qualifications in PR (bus drivers have better defined qualifications).

Disgusted (8/30):
Mr. (or should I say Professor? Or Doctor?) Trahan certainly projects a professional image with the hat and beer mug photo. I'm sure that will impress both students, parents, other academic colleagues and certainly the corporate CEOs who make decisions about PR budgets within their organizations.

No wonder no one takes PR educators seriously.

Wes Pedersen, Principal, Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations (8/30):
Many of the PR professionals quoted above seem convinced that students entering the PR world come equipped with a talent for writing.

Ask your reporter/editor friends if that is indeed the case. If they have seen the same media releases that have crossed my desk, they will tell you that it just is not so.

The typical PR shop would benefit greatly if it were to hire a skilled editor to work its releases, op-eds and pitches into shape, all the while helping staff improve their talents as purveyors of sensible sentences.

Arthur Solomon, Arthur Solomon Communications, arthursolomon4pr@juno.com (8/29):
There is nothing better that prepares an individual for a career in p.r. than working for a year or so on the other side of the desk, whether it be on a small daily, large weekly, trade publication or the electronic media.

When I went to college there weren't p.r. majors. You had to major in english and minor in journalism. P.R. was an optional course. (I got my start in p.r. after working as a reporter.) I doubt if any of the pioneers who created the p.r. business ever majored in p.r.

My advice to communications grads is to spend a year or two in journalism prior to applying for a p.r. job. That way you can realistically understand the needs of the client and the media and satisfy both.

Your point is well taken and makes sense, Jack. I am not against communications schools. Saying that, over the years, I have seen way too many p.r. school grads who couldn't write a straight news release, much less a creative feature, or develop story ideas that would catch the attention of editors, both print or electronic.

A common complaint to me from editors, in the past and present, has been constant: "We don't mind crediting the client and working with p.r. people. But we get too many p.r. releases with poor writing and without even an attempt to make the client interest newsworthy so the plug stands out like a sore thumb."

I do know that many communications schools require their p.r. students to intern at p.r. firms. Perhaps, p.r. students should also be required to intern at news organizations prior to graduation so they can get a better understanding of how to deal with editors and see first-hand what editors look for from p.r. people.

I feel this is important because most p.r. stories fit into the "take it or leave it" category at news outlets. It's the extra effort to develop creative publicity ideas for editor's/producers that not only helps the p.r. person make "contacts" but, importantly, gets your story used.

Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (8/29):
When greater mountains will have been created from minor molehills, this may well have been the anecdotal reference for them.

Such amazing heat from the academic mavens who might have dealt more effectively with the allegedly offending words of the Princeton Review by not enhancing them with their vigorous anger which will now create more questions in the minds of potential students and give still greater PR to the PR!