FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Joe DeRupo | (212) 460-1495 | joseph.derupo@prsa.org
Public Relations Education Goes Global with Groundbreaking Outreach
by Commission on Public Relations Education
Translations of Seminal Report Signal First Known
Internationalization of Education Guidelines
NEW YORK (Feb. 27, 2008) – In the first known global outreach of its kind, the Commission on Public Relations Education (the Commission) has issued a summary of its seminal report on public relations education in five additional languages – Arabic, Chinese*, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. In the report, “The Professional Bond,” the Commission surveys the interaction between public relations education and practice for the 21st century. The report and the translations are available on the Commission’s Web site.
“With these translations, the Commission is sharing its guidance on public relations education with educators worldwide,” said John Paluszek, senior counsel at Ketchum and co-chair of the Commission. “In creating this breakthrough in global communications education, we are indebted to Commission members who developed the standards and the volunteers who translated the report findings.”
“Making “The Professional Bond” available in these commonly accessible languages is the first known mass communications education effort to share standards in other languages with faculty and students around the world,” added Dr. Dean Kruckeberg of the University of North Iowa and Commission co-chair. “Those standards, moreover, are informational rather than prescriptive, allowing for critical adaptation to different social, cultural and political environments to which they will be applied.”
Sharing the Commission’s guidelines with educators and practitioners around the world echoes the new global communications environment in which public relations professionals now work. Engaging the new technologies and opportunities is essential not only to serving a clientele that is increasingly global, but also to delivering best practices to all clients. Education is key to optimizing mutual understanding and seamless interconnectedness.
Seminal Report
“The Professional Bond” explores the link between education and practice that is the hallmark of any profession. The report was developed to demonstrate, facilitate and encourage that link, and to set forth recommendations for excellence developed by a panel of distinguished educators and practitioners. The recommendations are not meant to be prescriptive, but instead are guidelines for the development of public relations education, flexible enough to accommodate special circumstances and different cultures.
About the Commission on Public Relations Education
Over several decades, the Commission has presented recommendations on public relations curricula and associated subjects. Its work has been adopted by colleges and universities throughout the United States and, in recent years, has become a point of reference in other parts of the world. The Commission is composed of public relations educators and practitioners who represent 12 professional societies in public relations and related fields of communications. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is one of those organizations and serves as the Commission’s administrative arm. The Commission’s undergraduate curriculum serves as the basis for the formation of Chapters of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) throughout the United States.
About the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
The Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa.org), headquartered in New York City, is the world’s largest organization for public relations professionals with nearly 32,000 professional and student members. PRSA is organized into 109 Chapters nationwide and 19 Professional Interest Sections and Affinity Groups, which represent business and industry, counseling firms, independent practitioners, military, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. The Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) has 291 Chapters at colleges and universities throughout the United States and one Chapter in Argentina.
* Translation of the full report is available in Chinese.