Oct. 30 Meeting

-Next year's National PRSSA Conference is in Detroit! Dates TBA! If you're
interested please talk to one of the officers and we'll start coming
up with fundraising ideas now!
-Lindsay Southwick has been appointed interim PR Director for the rest
of the semester.
-Dr. Cleo Allen at the Dept. of Social Services spoke at the
meeting. She has an internship available in the spring. Please
e-mail the account if you're interested and one of the officers will
contact you with more information.

Dr. Allen has received degrees at both Southern and LSU. She began in
journalism and then switched to PR. She is also APR certified. She
worked in journalism for 16 years, then moved to freelance PR and
began teaching mass communication. She was initiated into state work
in fall 2005. It was "trial by fire" with the many complications from
the hurricane season that year.

There are three agencies within the Department of Social Services:
Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, Office of Community Services and
Office of Family Support. She helps develop incentives to families
who participate in foster and adoption services and communicates with
the media. She is currently working to promote National Adoption
Month (November) and will be having an event at the Governor's
Mansion. Her work requires press releases, trying to get a cover
story in the feature section of the Advocate. Also in November is Hunger & Homelessness Weeks (Nov. 11 - 17), which encourages people to
understand homelessness in the state, individually and as groups. It
also gives them a great opportunity to let the public know what DSS and the State are doing to help the poverty situation.

Allen said that one of the hardest parts of her job is that she
receives reports of fatalities or near fatalities of children everyday. She
said she must be prepared in case there is high human interest in a
story. It's heartbreaking to read about neglected and abused
children.

Allen said it used to be very difficult to speak to the press because
they were not allowed to talk about the private lives of the people
involved in such instances. "No Comment" looks very guilty. They
were recently given the ability to clarify, confirm, or correct
information that a media source might already have, just not give out
any additional information.

Much of her job requires both internal and external communication.
She advises that students takes writing very seriously and read as
much as possible. She expects her interns to monitor the media
and try not to miss any stories. You never know what you have to
respond to. A lot of her communications include memos, press
releases, quarterly meetings and newsletters. One draw back to being a
state employee is that if you are "unclassified" it means you can be
replaced once a new administration takes over.

Allen recommends getting masters or PhD degrees to anyone who would be
so inclined. Grad school broadens outlook, very beneficial, helps
look at big picture. Doesn't necessarily recommend working first, it
took her 17 years to go back to school. It does help to work in order
to get a better idea of what you want to do, any truly interested
student would always benefit.

She received her masters in Journalism and her PhD in Political Communication.

Our next meeting will be held Nov. 13 and our speaker will be Robyn Lott from the Graham Group. We hope to see you there!