Brigham Young University students getting a head start in the field of Public Relations with in-house agency
The public relations program of Brigham Young University (BYU), like many other programs on campus and at other universities, is offering its students real-life experiences with the re-launch of the Bradley Public Relations agency, a public relations firm run by students and overseen by faculty.
“In years past, the Bradley Public Relations agency has had a dozen or more clients and upwards of 80 student participants at any given time,” said Jeffrey DuBois, the new faculty adviser for Bradley Public Relations. “Lab participation was accredited, but volunteer-based and highly rewarding as it provided a fantastic opportunity for students to gain experience and build their portfolios prior to graduation.”
Often, communications companies require impressive portfolios from their applicants and at least two years of experience. This trend has brought programs in the Communications Department to recognize the need for their students to get involved now in order to establish good work ethics for themselves and gain valuable skills. The Ad Lab, another agency also run by BYU students, has won many prestigious awards and given its volunteers priceless opportunities.
“The best thing that the Ad Lab does for students is giving them real clients experience they can’t get anywhere else,” said Tom Robinson, an Associate Professor in BYU’s advertising program. “They apply for internships and thanks to this experience which makes them more qualified than other interns, they get the jobs.”
Employers are actively looking for graduates with hands-on experience. Students in various disciplines are starting to notice the contributions and opportunities offered by these on-campus agencies to their education. In a phone interview, one communications student talked about his experience with the BYU newsroom.
“As I have talked to students in other colleges about their broadcast journalism programs, I’ve realized that our program is state of the art and one of the best in the country,” said Joshua Molina, a BYU student majoring in broadcast journalism. “Whereas a lot of colleges offer weekly newscasts or a few times a week, ours is shot, written, edited and air statewide by the students on a daily basis.”
The Bradley Public Relations agency was created 22 years ago, and during its time running has been acknowledged six times by Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) as the best chapter firm in the United States.
The reorganization of the Bradley PR planned for this coming fall aim to bring more structures to the agency and enhance the mentoring experience of its students.
DuBois is looking to fill various positions within the lab with public relations students in the next couple of months. Positions will require students to have taken certain classes offered by the program. Their participation will be application-based. For example, students applying for the Account Executive and Jr. Account Executive positions will need to have already taken respectively Comms 421 and Comms 318. Comms 390R students will need to have completed Comms 235.
DuBois expressed his hope that this reorganization will help Bradley Public Relations to break away from local and smaller companies and open the door for larger nationals businesses. These larger firms, according to DuBois, would greatly benefit from this collaboration because of the low cost of Bradley’s services and the level of education offered by the public relations program.
“It’s a true win-win for organizations who want to augment their communications efforts,” said DuBois. “Especially given that our public relations students have always excelled at knowledge-driven, and not assumption-driven, public relations initiatives.”
Students and faculty are hoping for the best and gearing up for the re-launch of Bradley Public Relations, which should bring a fresh air of opportunities to the program.
“I am happy and excited to be a part of the next phase of Bradley Public Relations,” says DuBois. “I look forward to working closely with other BYU faculty and students to make the Bradley Public Relations into something extraordinary among public relations programs throughout the nation.”
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