2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Crisis in the Classroom:
A cross-departmental approach prepares PR students as spokespeople
Colleen Pope Lemza
State University of New York, Plattsburgh
colleen.lemza@plattsburgh.edu
Introduction
Much has been written about the value of service learning in the public relations
education curriculum. Just from last year’s conference proceedings Bartoo & Slater and
Muhtaseb all discussed the positive benefits to the public relations industry, the service
learning clients and mostly, the students. However, service learning, born from
experiential learning, isn’t new. John Dewey discussed its benefits in his 1959 paper
entitled Experience and Education (Dewey, 1959). Educators agree there’s value in
experiential classroom learning, but incorporating all aspects of public relations into the
classroom can be difficult or even damaging to the client.
Any public relations practitioner who’s been responsible for handing a crisis
situation knows that doomsday isn’t the right time for a student to be calling the shots in
an experiential learning course. It takes significant skill and experience, not to mention a
cool head, to come out on the other side of a hot issue with your reputation intact. This
isn’t a learning opportunity most companies would turn over to an intern or a project
team in a service learning class.
The Challenge
So the question becomes how do students learn this important aspect of public
relations to gain an appreciation for the preparation and composure it takes to handle the
pressure? Think back to your first heated interview with that first microphone in your
face. I’m sure like most you watched the evening news and asked yourself why you said
that. Or just as common, screamed “That’s not what I meant!” at the television.
Who wouldn’t have appreciated an opportunity to be in the hot seat without any
negative ramifications to your organization or career before it was showtime? Certainly
there are day-long to week-long media training courses available to teach these valuable
skills, but not at a price recent college graduates can afford.
Relationship-Building
Another aspect of crisis communication that can’t be easily learned from a
textbook or even a campaigns course is how to develop, use and retain those important
relationships with the media. Granted, the landscape has changed drastically in this area
of media relationships with all the new technologies. However, in most small towns
across the country, a phone call or email from the local newspaper or television affiliate
still make public relations practitioners want to return messages.
How can students learn about culturing that relationship before they get burned on
their first job? Opening the newspaper in the morning and reading a quote not truly
intended for print is one way to learn your lesson. If nothing else, exposing too much
information once is a good incentive to master those media/practitioner relationship skills
so it doesn’t happen again. Being caught off-guard in a media interview, whether in
crisis mode or not, will prevent one from being ill-prepared the next time. This is exactly
the lesson I try to leave on my students by creating full-blown crisis scenarios in the
classroom involving television, print and audio journalists.
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