Grad school was always on my radar, but I never thought about the exact time I’d return to school. When I was still getting my bachelor’s, I made jokes about going back to school when I hit ‘grad school dark.’ See, I made that joke fully expecting to graduate and be successful.

As we all know, life always has other plans.

After spending almost a year in retail, I hit that dark place. More than a lack of guidance for my future, I realized I was losing my passion for my selected field of public relations. The longer I was away, the less I remembered why I chose it in the first place. Then the IMC program at WVU got involved.

As an active member of PRSSA and frequent PRSA Pittsburgh event attender, I was very aware of the Integrated Marketing Communications program offered online by West Virginia University.  In fact, I always assumed I would select it because of the convenience and high honors it’s received.

I signed up for an online chat to learn more and within a week I had gathered all the materials and applied. I’ve heard nightmares about the application process for grad school, but I found the process relatively painless. WVU understands where its students are coming from and tries to make it as simple as possible and waives testing with a high enough GPA.

When I found out I was accepted, I was beyond excited for the next step in my life. But also incredibly terrified.

Yes, it was quite the adjustment learning to do school online, but the community created was amazing. More than just the conversations you have within the class discussion board, most of the students rally together on Facebook and form the relationships necessary to succeed.

I was sure online school would mean two years of working alone, but it was meeting other professionals and learning from them as well. It was incredible.

Over 20 months, I took 11 different classes, ranging from social media to analytics to crisis communication. And that is just the tip of the iceberg with the class offerings. You can select classes that support your current career path or try to learn something completely different and expand your knowledge.

My time at WVU also presented the biggest academic challenge I’ve faced. The final course is a capstone designed to test everything you’ve learned in the previous 10 courses. For nine weeks, you have to essentially function as an agency and create a complete campaign with real executions for a client. To say it’s demanding is an understatement.

It’s also incredibly rewarding.

As much as I was pushed, I realized I was equipped with everything I needed to succeed in my campaign. Yes, the work was hard, but I knew what I was doing. And sure, there was a little bit of ‘fake it till you make it,’ but there was very little to fake.

Whether you know you want to grad school or you’re on the fence, make the right choice and consider WVU. The schedule is tailored for you. If you want to take summers off, great. If you want to take one class a term, excellent. If you want to speed through and get everything done in just more than a year and a half, do it. The IMC Program at WVU wants you to succeed in whatever way works for you.

What are you waiting for? If you want more information, visit www.imc.wvu.edu, and definitely check out the open house at BRUNNER Thursday, April 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. I mean really, what have you got to lose?

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Chelsea N. Cummins is the fixed operations marketing coordinator for Hunter Truck Sales and Director of Communications for PRSA Pittsburgh. Her passions in life include Jesus, her nieces, Twitter rants and blogging about all her ill-advised decisions. And obviously the field of public relations. Please be her friend: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

By Elizabeth Bacheson

Public relations professionals hate pitching. Reporters, editors and writers hate being pitched. But here we are, driving each other crazy day after day anyway. How can we stop that?

On Wednesday, March 30 from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at Sharp Edge Bistro downtown, members of PRSA Pittsburgh and Online News Association (ONA) Pittsburgh joined forces for a no-pitch, no sell night of talking and learning from each other, or having a drink and getting to know each other!

Upon arriving, attendees were encouraged to share their questions or suggestions on slips of paper (or via the #PRSAONA hashtag) on what can be improved or should be avoided when working with either PR professionals or members of the media. This would serve as the basis of a moderated discussion later in the evening.

After mingling with fellow attendees over drinks and appetizers, PRSA Pittsburgh President Steve Radick who serves as VP, director of public relations and content integration at Brunner; and ONA’s Kim Lyons, news editor at NEXT Pittsburgh; held an interactive discussion to break down the barriers that PR professionals and members of the media may encounter when working together. And so we can take some advice from each other!

The topics and questions submitted spurred a great dialogue that offered some hilarious, truthful insights from both PR professionals and members of the media. Some included:

• What’s your favorite and least favorite parts of working with PR professionals?
• The fine line between persistence and badgering when it comes to pitching a reporter.
• Get the reporter’s name right when pitching.
• Should a PR professional formally thank the reporter after running a positive story about their client?
• Crisis scenarios: If a PR person’s client isn’t available during a crisis, make sure you give the media the right point person.
• What’s newsworthy? It’s the reporter’s job to judge that. PR professionals should have honest conversations with their client about what is a story and what isn’t. Taking it to a reporter will just burn bridges.
•  You’re not doing a client any favors by shopping around a story that no one will be interested in.

 

The evening ended with a discussion on empathy. PR professionals have a job to do and so to members of the media, but we need to help each other out in order to do that. Enough said!

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Elizabeth Bacheson currently serves as PRSA Pittsburgh’s Programming Director and social media communicator at Westinghouse Electric Company in Cranberry Twp., PA where she oversees corporate social media activities, including strategy and content creation to ensure alignment across social media accounts globally.

The monthly PRSA Pittsburgh Board meeting on Tuesday revealed that the chapter is well on its way to reaching the 2016 strategic goals described in President Steve Radick’s post earlier this year.

In the first quarter of 2016, PRSA Pittsburgh:

• Hosted two events: the annual Renaissance Awards at Hotel Monaco and a joint networking and media relations event with the Online News Association (ONA)
• Presented on behalf of PRSA at locations such as CCAC Boyce Campus and Clarion University, with several more engagements at colleges and universities scheduled for spring
• Distributed two of the chapter’s new e-newsletters, featuring programming previews, member spotlights, national PRSA updates and more.

 

Discussion at the Board meeting focused heaving on programming. Educational programs, communicator tours, membership events and networking activities are being planned on a monthly basis from April through December, sometimes overlapping and often featuring partner organizations such as WIB-Pittsburgh and PRSA Cleveland. Members should find these events fun and a little unexpected, and we look forward to sharing them with you as the planning unfolds. Stay tuned!

Plans for our 2016 Public Service Campaign and the development of a new PRSA Pittsburgh website also served as topics of discussion at the Board meeting. Many exciting projects are underway—more to be detailed following the April 26 Board meeting.

If you have any suggestion for our Board, email us as info@prsa-pgh or find the Board Chairperson you wish to reach here.

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What made you want to get into public relations?

I am a naturally outgoing person. My friends joke that I could even befriend a rock if I tried. When I was looking at potential majors, I realized PR is founded upon genuine, mutually beneficial relationships with others including clients, publics and coworkers. Moreover, PR requires strong writing skills on a variety of platforms. I have always loved to write and to share other people’s stories. So when I finally had to choose a major, I knew PR was the right fit for me because it values relationship building, writing and storytelling.

 

What is your year in school?

My situation is a little confusing. I am in my second year at Duquesne University; however, thanks to the college courses I took in high school, I am considered a junior in credits.

 

How do you explain your major to other people?

When I tell others I am a double major in Public Relations and International Relations, I always follow up with, “Basically, I am getting a degree in relationships.” Although this is a simple synopsis of these two majors, I think it humorously defines the most important aspect of each: Relationships. The PR profession would not exist without relationships founded upon mutual responsibility, integrity and trust. Moreover, PR and IR emphasize understanding and compromise when building and maintaining these relationships. I think both of these qualities are needed more in the world today.

 

What do you hope to do with your degree?

With my degree, I hope to foremost share the stories of others with the people who care about them the most. As human beings, we are natural storytellers. A degree in PR though means I am equipped with a valuable set of verbal and written communication skills to effectively share these stories.

Ultimately, I would like to use my degree to share the stories of those individuals, organizations and businesses that invest time, energy and money in sustainable community service and engagement projects benefiting underserved communities and groups throughout the world. There are numerous non-profit organizations that work daily to provide social and economic opportunities for these communities yet their stories go untold. I believe the PR skillset is a valuable tool for these organizations. I hope to one day be able to share their stories, expand their audiences and, overall, raise awareness about the important work they humbly do everyday improving the lives of others and making the world a better place.

 

How did you feel when you learned you won the Bob O’Gara scholarship?

Initially, I was utterly surprised and, then, extremely grateful. I was thankful that my time and energy invested in being a disciplined student had paid off. Additionally, this scholarship is going to help pay for my study abroad program next fall in Chile. I am thankful that my hard work and passion for PR has earned me this recognition.

 

Why do you believe PRSA is beneficial?

PRSA allows its members to be a part of a local public relations community and do what so many PR professionals do best: socialize and network. Moreover, PRSA serves as the ideal environment for a sharing of new ideas and fluid discussion of industry-defining trends. To be cliché, two heads are always better than one. PRSA provides PR professionals with the opportunity to brainstorm the next big-idea in a supportive community of distinguished and experienced peers.

 

What’s one thing other PRSA members should know about you?

I am a strong advocate for women’s rights and girls’ empowerment. My interest in these issues led me to become involved with Duquesne’s Chapter of Strong Women, Strong Girls (SWSG), a mentoring organization which serves to foster a safe and strong communities for young, at-risk girls in the Pittsburgh area where they can learn about successful female role models, develop leadership skills and feel empowered to pursue college. This year, I am the Social Media & Outreach Coordinator for SWSG. In this position, I have been able to use PR to share SWSG’s story with others. I believe this position is critical for our fundraising efforts as well as our audience’s overall awareness of issues currently affecting women and girls’ empowerment throughout the world.

By Steve Radick

When I took over as your President two months ago, I was excited (maybe a little too excited) to really dive into the job. Like I tend to do with any new position, I threw myself into the role, setting up a bunch of meetings, sending late night emails, and creating all kinds of plans. However, I quickly realized that my role as President isn’t to take over and try to do everything, but to empower and activate everyone I’m working with – including our Board members and by extension, all of you.

The strongest PRSA chapters are the ones where everyone is committed to moving the entire membership forward. Where members feel a sense of community with each other. Where the lines between agencies, brands, non-profits, and academia disappear and we realize that we can all be better together.

That feeling is really what drove the development of our 2016 Strategic Plan. That’s why our #1 goal is to activate more of you. We want to get more of our members involved, both online and off. And we want to create more opportunities for you to do so. Judging by our most recent Renaissance Awards ceremony, we’ve got a fantastically talented group of members that we can all learn from. And I want to do whatever I can to help connect all of us more often and in more ways than ever before.

That’s why we developed these goals and objectives for 2016:

Already, Elizabeth has made some great progress getting our programming calendar squared away, and if things go according to plan, we’ll have a whole lot more to share in the next few weeks, including some exciting partners and speakers we’re talking with now. You may have also seen the monthly newsletters that Chelsea has created. I hope that by supplementing our website and social media properties with this regular drumbeat of communications in your inbox, we’ll be able to keep you better informed of what’s going on.

Thanks to some absolutely fantastic work by Jess Franklin, Paige Blawas, and Lauren Wenzel, we also put on one of our largest Renaissance Awards ceremonies in years. If you haven’t watched the highlight video, you should do it now. This is the second highlight video produced by the uber-talented Tim Long, our new Multimedia Director. He also produced this excellent recap of our Professional Development Day in October.

We’ve got a lot more on tap this year – make sure you read our newsletters, bookmark our blog,    follow us on Twitter at @prsapgh and like us on Facebook at PRSA Pittsburgh.