January 29, 2009 Newsletter

Due to printing restrictions because of budget cuts by the Manship School, the LSU PRSSA newsletter will be posted online the day of the meeting.

Click here to download the January 29 newsletter.

-Justin

Upcoming Spring Meeting Dates

Hey everyone,

I hope you all had a great holiday break and are ready to start the spring semester. PRSSA will be EXTREMELY busy this semester now that our Regional Activity has been planned. A MAJOR thanks goes out to Chelsey Laborde for creating a Web site for the Regional Activity. Also, thanks goes out to everyone who has been planning the activity with our coordinator, Laura Weems.

More currently, here are the meeting dates we've schedule in the Holliday Forum for the spring semester (these are all on Thursday, except for March 24):

January 29
February 12
February 26 (Thursday after Mardi Gras)
March 12
March 24 (TUESDAY)--Networking Night is that Thursday
April 16 (Probably officer elections night)

As always, let me know if you have anything you'd like posted to the blog. I'd love this to be a place where LSU PRSSA members can get the recognition they deserve, so if you know of anyone who has gotten special recognition, received scholarships, scored a great internship, etc., let me know and we'll post it here.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the first meeting!

Justin Runyon
PR Director

Newsletter for Oct. 23 Meeting (Sorry it's up late!)

Scholarship Opportunities

(From Dr. Lundy)

ATTENTION LSU PRSSA MEMBERS: I strongly encourage you to apply for these awards. LSU students have been very successful in past competitions. (From Dr. Lundy)

The Baton Rouge Chapter of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana (PRAL) annually grants two awards to superior Louisiana collegians seeking public relations or journalism careers.

The Jack H. Sanders Memorial Award is open to all Louisiana college students and the William Michelet Honorary Award is awarded to a student attending either LSU or Southern University. Each scholarship is worth $1,000. For more information about these awards, visit the "Awards" section of www.pralbr.org Web site.

Award candidates must be full-time undergraduates majoring in public relations or journalism, or working toward a degree with an emphasis in public relations. The applicant for the Sanders Award must be a senior during the 2009-2010 school year. To apply, candidates should submit:
• A completed application form. (See attached files.)
• An official transcript.
• A press release publicizing themselves as the winner.
• A one-page essay (see application for details).
• A brief letter of recommendation.

If applying for both awards, a student need submit only one transcript. However, a separate application form, press release and essay are required for each scholarship.

Please encourage your students to apply. Your assistance in promoting these awards is greatly appreciated. Applications should be postmarked no later than Thursday, November 20, 2008 and mailed to Michelle Spielman, Office of Public Affairs, Louisiana State University – South Campus, 8000 GSRI Road, Building 3110, Baton Rouge, LA 70820.

The recipients will be recognized at PRAL's January 2009 banquet. If you have questions, I can be reached at 225-578-4675. Thank you for supporting PRAL!

LSU PRSSA wins bid to host regional conference in 2009!

Hey PRSSAers,

Get excited because LSU's PRSSA has won the bid to host a regional activity!!!!!!!! Save the Date: April 17 for "Geaux Governmental: Communicating in the Capital City." At the next meeting, (Oct. 23) we'll be talking about forming a committee for regional activity so we can get the ball rolling on booking speakers, getting topics together, etc. This is an awesome way to put LSU's chapter on the map, learn more about the PR field, network with local professionals and other members from around the region, and raise money for our chapter! Being on the committee team will also be a great way to earn active member points and build your resume! Let us know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!

Sincerely,
Laura Weems
Fundraising Chair/Regional Activity Coordinator

Newsletter for October 6, 2008

Tiger Stadium Clean-up Fundraiser

We've been given the opportunity this year to clean up a section of Tiger Stadium as a fundraiser for PRSSA. Here are the details:

• Sunday, November 16 (after the Troy State game)
• 6:45 a.m.
• Meet in front of Mike the Tiger's cage
• Finish at 10:00 a.m.
• Mandatory for officers and those going to conference
• E-mail fundraising chair Laura Weems at laura.weems@gmail.com
• We need at least 20 people
• It's worth 2 participation points

The fundraiser IS early, but it's a really good way for us to help out with various expenses and build PRSSA into a more prominent student society. On a personal note, I was extremely impressed with the amount of members we had at Thursday's meeting. PRSSA has the potential to become an even better way to network and share our undergrad experience as PR majors, and I hope this year sets the benchmark for how successful PRSSA at LSU will be in the future.

So, e-mail Laura or the PRSSA at LSU e-mail address (prssalsu@gmail.com) to sign up and help out!

-Justin

Information About 2008 Bateman Competition

Applications are now available for the 2008-2009 LSU Bateman team. The application is attached to this email. The Bateman Team Competition is a national case study competition established by PRSA in 1973 to allow members of the Public Relations Society of America an opportunity to exercise the analytical skills and mature judgment required for public relations problem-solving. Students chosen for the 2008-2009 Bateman team will begin work on the campaign in Fall 2008 and complete their campaign in Spring 2009. They will be enrolled for and earn credit for MC 4005 in Spring 2009. Please note: This is something you will work on outside of class. It involves a significant time commitment on your part.

Requirements for selection to the Bateman team:
· 3.0 GPA or higher
· Must be hard-working, able to take initiative and work well in a group
· Must have a flexible schedule to allow time for group meetings

If you meet these requirements and you are interested in applying, applications are due no later than Friday, October 3, 2008. Put all of your materials in an envelope and write LISA LUNDY – BATEMAN on the front. Ask the person at the front desk of the Journalism building to put the envelope in Dr. Lisa Lundy's box.

If you have any questions, please let me know. You can email Dr. Lundy at llundy@lsu.edu.

(From Dr. Lundy)

September 25 Newsletter

Dues

The deadline for turning in dues for PRSSA is October 6, 2008. Dues are $70 and include your registration with both our LSU chapter and the national affiliation. Please see Laura Bratcher, our treasurer, to pay them.

PRSSA Conference Registration Deadline Extended

From PRSSA National Headquarters:

"The deadline to register for the PRSSA 2008 National Conference has been extended to Wednesday, Oct. 1, in consideration of those affected by adverse weather in the Gulf Coast, to accommodate schools operating on quarter schedules and to allow additional time for fundraising.

Please visit www.prssa.org before Oct. 1 to register for the Conference, held Oct. 24–28 at the Courtyard by Marriott Detroit Downtown, and don't forget to sign up for the joint Opening Night Reception with PRSA. The résumé workshop is no longer available. On the Web site you can find a list of recommended hotels within walking distance of the Conference host hotel.

We look forward to seeing you in Detroit."

September 11 Newsletter

Fall 2008 Meeting Dates

Hey everyone! PRSSA at LSU is very exited about the upcoming 2008-2009 academic year. Here is the meeting schedule for Fall 2008:

September 11
September 25
October 6
October 23
November 6
November 20

All meetings will be held at 6:00pm on Thursdays in the Holliday Forum of the Journalism building, except for the October 6 meeting, which is on a Monday. We originally anticipated having fall break that week, but, unfortunately, that's been cancelled.

Each week will feature a great guest speaker and a good way to connect with your undergraduate public relations peers. We look forward to seeing returning members again and meeting new members soon!

Congratulations to the new 2008-2009 officers!

The election of officers was held at yesterday's meeting on April 8. The officers for the 2008-2009 academic year are:

President - Kelli Eason
Vice President - Alex Wommack
PR Director - Justin Runyon
Secretary - Parker Wishik
Treasurer - Laura Bratcher
Fundraising Chair - Laura Weems
PRestige - Chelsey Laborde & Britney Lombas
Mentor Match - Marisa Joseph & Rebecca Erwin

Tuesday, April 8 Newsletter

Hey guys,

As promised, here is the newsletter from tonight. Congratulations to the new officers! I'm really excited about the 2008-2009 academic year, and I'm 100% positive that PRSSA at LSU is going to continue to grow and maintain its reputation as one of the best pre-professional societies on campus.

Feel free to submit anything for the April 22 meeting's newsletter to me at justinrunyon@gmail.com. Also, don't forget that t-shirts can be purchased for $12 at Dr. Dahman's office in 203 Hodges.

April 8th Meeting

PRSSA at LSU will be holding officer elections Tuesday night at 6:00 p.m. in the Journalism Building. We would like as many members as possible to attend and vote for the new officers for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Newsletter suggestions?

Hey all,

This is a personal post from me, Justin, letting all members know that any suggestions for the newsletter are welcome. I'm in the process of redesigning the format and creating new graphics, so any suggestions are welcome. Also, I apologize if there weren't enough newsletters to go around. Paw Prints only accepts cash and I only had $2 on me. If you're interested, I've uploaded the pages of the newsletter here below!

If you've got any suggestions, send them to me at justinrunyon@gmail.com. Thanks!




Oh, and for those of you that missed the meeting, Mr. Duncan was an excellent guest speaker. Also, a big congratulations to Dr. Lundy and her soon-to-be new arrival! Big thanks to everyone who helped plan, and extra-big thanks to whoever was involved in picking out that cake. It was delicious.

New Scholarship Available for Public Relations Students

The Baton Rouge Chapter of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana (PRAL) annually grants two awards to superior Louisiana collegians seeking public relations or journalism careers.

The Jack H. Sanders Memorial Award is open to all Louisiana college students and the William M. Michelet Honorary Award is awarded to a student attending either LSU or Southern University. Each scholarship is worth $1,000. For more information about these awards, visit the "Awards" section of PRAL Web site, www.pralbr.org.

Award candidates must be full-time undergraduates majoring in public relations or journalism, or working toward a degree with an emphasis in public relations. The applicant must be a senior during the 2008-2009 school year. To apply, candidates should submit:

A completed application form. (See attached PDFs.)
An official transcript.
A press release publicizing themselves as the winner.
A one-page essay (see application for details).
A brief letter of recommendation.
If applying for both awards, you need submit only one transcript. However, a separate application form, press release and essay are required for each scholarship.

Applications should be postmarked no later than Friday, March 28, 2008 and mailed to Michelle Spielman, Office of Public Affairs, Louisiana State University, 3960 West Lakeshore Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70808.

The recipients are scheduled to be recognized at PRAL's April luncheon. If you have questions, contact Erin Mustain at 225-578-4675.

Nov. 13 Meeting

-Social is on Nov. 28 at 8pm at Mellow Mushroom. Trivia is at 8; karaoke at 10.
Please email the PRSSA email account at prssalsu@gmail.com if you're
interested in going. Your dues are paying for the social!

Guest speaker: Robyn Lott with Fidelity Homestead Savings Bank- She is
looking for an unpaid intern for the spring. If you're interested
please contact robynlott@fidelityhomestead.com for more information.

Lott is a Mississippi native and received her bachelor of science
degree in communications/public relations with a minor in psychology
from Mississippi University for Women in Columbus. She received her
master's degree in communication and information sciences from the
University of Alabama in Tuscalousa.

Lott highly recommends internships while in school. During one of her
internships, Lott worked heavily with promoting direct deposits to
banking customers. Lott has an advertising perspective. She worked
for three years at a Lafayette-based agency called the Graham Group. She
received a step up for regular entry position since she had her
Masters. At Graham Group, she handled clients such as Hotel Monteleone and
various law firms.

She was promoted to account executive after working at Graham for 6 months.
It was a big change, she was a director supervisor. A big challenge
was when her mentor within the agency resigned. She was forced to
"sink or swim" and didn't have that safety net to double check her
moves while she was working. It also gave her an opportunity to
develop as an individual.

At this stage, she started to get larger accounts. She would also take
non-profit work as well if it met one of three criteria: they had
great creative opportunity to help build portfolios, if the group
would give them an in with a larger client that they did want, or if
it was for a charitable cause.

There's high turnover in the advertising agency world. You're
considered a veteran if you've been somewhere more than 2 years. She
was promoted to account supervisor at 2 1/2 years with Graham

Graham was set up in such a way:
3-5 people in media department
3-4 graphic designers
part-time copy writer
interactive department
administrative, accounting, human resources

Account executives handle the initial meetings with clients, pitching,
getting business, once the people are clients - they meet regularly
depending on the clients, sometime once a week, sometimes once every
few months.

There was a PR director that handled the media relationships for
Graham Group itself.

Lott said that agency work is never boring, you see new faces every
day; you can get as many accounts as you feel you can handle. She
found it to be frustrating, however, when she worked on projects that
never came to fruition. Even if she got paid for her work, she never
got to see the ideas materialize. Agency work can be very fast paced
to the point of confusion, you have to be an excellent multitasker.

She also found it difficult to form relationships with clients. It's
a very big deal to have clients for 3-5 years.

After she had been with Graham for a couple of years, she felt she had learned everything she could. She wanted a
new challenge. One of her clients, Fidelilty Homestead, approached her
about becoming their senior vice president of marketing and she took
the job. She felt it was going to be very fulfilling and they offered
great pay and benefits. If she had not proved herself in her agency
work, she might not be where she is today. Developing that
relationship with clients is crucial for future success.

As Senior VP her duties include: 2008 budgeting and planning, manage
Graham Group (she's now the client!), compile every department section
of business plan, 100th aniversary events and planning. She also
prepares a monthly newsletter. She said her weakness is graphic
design and it was very challenging for her. She said its better to
approach weaknesses by educating yourself further in those areas,
instead of giving up. She sought tutoring from a former coworker.

One of her goals was to give Homestead Fidelity a cohesive and
consistant message. They're a growing presence regionally and have a
lot of account holders. They are mainly based out of the New Orleans
and have lost a lot of clients due to displacement. She tries to
support the tellers and provide them with material to help the
clients.

She finds the corporate side of communications to still be fast paced,
but more on her own terms. She has more decision making ability.
Some cons is that no one is underneath her, she can only do so much
as a one-woman department. She tries to build relationships with
coworkers in other departments, so she can delegate tasks that aren't
necessarily hard, but time consuming- such as envelope stuffing, etc.
The corporate side is also not as creative an environment. It's a much
more button down atmosphere than agency work.

She is glad she started off in agency, it gave her a large portfolio
very quickly, you have rapid rates of promotion. She just didn't
necessarily want to spend the rest of her career in agency work.

Lott's advice is not to be afraid to go out on a limb, benefit from
adversity & change. When looking for an internship, you shouldn't
rule anything out. Even if you're not necessarily intersted in PR for
health care, it can be a great place to start and gain experience.
You won't type cast yourself as the "hospital guy."

Our last meeting of the semester is Nov. 27. We will welcome Ann Edelman from Zehnder Communications as our guest speaker. We look forward to seeing you there!

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!