PRSSA - YounGuns of PR?

Richard Edelman highlights his PRSSA weekend, mentioning progress in diversity and other key take aways.  I'm sorry Richard, but the PRSSA picture of the leadership committee looks pretty white-bread to me; and, the stats he reveals are not encouraging IMHO that any progress in diversity recruitment is being made.  I was stunned last year to learn that the highly respected Grady School at UGA was struggling to keep its accreditation for lack of diversity.   During the past few years I've interviewed and hired eight interns from the school, all of which are fantastic kids who have done great work; but, I'm not sure they're getting an "up-to-date" education.  For the past two years I've been invited to speak to students there and my takeaway's mirrors Edelman's post - most students are women, most want to work in agencies (mainly because they've heard it's glamorous), most prefer NYC as a destination, *and* they have no experience or urgency to engage in blogs or other "new media".  Most consider the "social media" they use as "socializing" - perhaps a concept certain PR people need to accept.

Comments

[jarrodm]

While PRSSA still is pretty white-bread and female based, the executive committee does not represent the rest of the students at the convention. I would know, I am here in SLC, currently. I have met many, many students with both diversity in skin color and attitude in the past few days. And while many of us are not tapped into the blogosphere and social marketing, some of us do exist. I would suggest that the percentage of students who are Web 2.0 ready is roughly the same percentage as current PR practitioners who are.

While this isn't sufficient, I personally find fault in the academic institutions that most of us are studying. We are not learning new media there and we are forced to learn it on our own. I personally have tried to do this, but it is difficult for many students to even begin without academic guidance. Conferences like this have been extremely helpful where PRSSA brought in speakers like Michael Terpin and David Forstrom to enlighten us students.

I believe that many of the YoungGuns of PR are poised to take the PR field by storm.

That being said, we will evolve or die. Some of us will, some of us won't. Regardless, the future of PR rests in our hands and there are many students who are very capable of handling this responsibility.

[Scott]

I wanted to take a minute to comment on the blog posted above and give some insight into this PRSSA National Committee's initiatives as well as my perspective as a Japanese American and a member of a National Committee for the past three years.

One of the most important issues we've talked about this year is diversity of thought. We believe that we as students and future professionals that we need to look beyond the color of someone's skin as a lone identifier of diversity, but also consider the ideas people have and use as practitioners of public relations. We need to create an air of openness to people who may have a differing opinion that transcends gender, race, skin color and so on.

One big step the Society has taken in recent years was an initial diversity initiative.
It was revised by the then Vice President of Chapter Development (and current National President) Kevin Saghy just one year ago. Later this year PRSSA will be unveiling their diversity tool kit to send to our Chapters for actively recruiting a variety of students with varying backgrounds; this project is being spearheaded by our Vice President of Advocacy Lisa Travnik. Travnik's position, created in April of 2006, was created to address these specific issues in an increasingly changing profession and Society. Her work and the role of this new position not only builds upon what has been done already, but creates a proactive voice on issues like diversity. This work ensures that PRSSA leads its members and public relations students in general on issues like this, so that all are included, irrespective of background, and engaged with all forms of diversity. This work is also a part of what gets each member of the committee elected. They are elected and/or appointed due to a recognition of diversity initatives as well as other platform ideas.

I urge each person who reads this blog and my reply to look beyond the color of people's skin, and realize as long as their hearts and mind are in the right place, we shouldn't worry if the leadership looks "white bread." Instead we should be focusing on what they do, not what they look like. Otherwise, we cannot further our profession. We should spend more time focusing on how we can continue to grow students who want to further their careers and learn more about the profession while broadening their horizons with organizations like PRSSA.

Scott T. Iwata
Immediate Past President
2006-2007 PRSSA National Committee

[Edward O'Meara]

Scott, thanks for commenting. I'm pretty sure however that "diversity of thought" is not what Richard Edelman had in mind with his remarks. It is not the criteria that the Journalism schools must use for accreditation purposes nor the standard being challenged in the advertising industry http://adage.com/article?article_id=113220

I hope you continue your industry leadership efforts, and that you'll drop by my blog again.

Edw.