Internal Public Relations Of Higher Education A Survey Of The Internal Public Relations Methods And Procedures Of Five Representative Ohio Institutions Of Higher Education

There has been a decline in public good will toward institutions of higher education for nearly four decades. Resultantly, the public, media, and politicians call for greater transparency. It would be beneficial for institutions of higher education to utilize strategic means to communicate their stories, successes and brand directly to various publics. A critical, albeit often an overlooked public, are the employees of the university. They can serve as ambassadors for the university interacting with outside publics. In this capacity, not only do employees need to know information about their organization to function well at their positions, they also need to understand the strategic direction of the organization. Strategic communication of this nature can be accomplished with them via internal communication, and that falls under the domain of the public relations entity on campus. This study seeks to examine how senior level public relations practitioners in higher education develop and carry out their internal communication responsibilities to employees. Understanding was sought regarding the practitioners' beliefs and practices regarding: (a) public relations as a strategic management function; (b) the role of relationship management within public relations; and (c) whether symmetrical communication is used for cultivating relationships while maintaining a feedback mechanism to adjust public relations strategies based on publics and environment. This study also looked at common and unique elements of practice, how higher education public relations practitioners define best practices, and whether they coordinate internal communication with other entities within their college or university and analyzes some demographic data regarding the career paths and education of the practitioners. It concludes that, while the participants in the study were operating with direct reporting to the president of their respective universities, and that all participants demonstrated working in a strategic capacity, none had documented communication processes with respect to internal audiences, and few had formal methods in place to evaluate the success of their efforts. In addition, none had well-formulated and strategic processes in place with respect to whether symmetrical communication is used for cultivating relationships while maintaining a feedback mechanism to adjust public relations strategies based on publics and environment.

This 130-page report gives extensive data and commentary of how colleges and universities are handling their public relations practices and presenting themselves to the broader public. The study enables its readers to answer questions such as: How much are colleges spending on public relations? How large are their public relations staffs? How many press releases do they send out and how many are via email and how many via post? How do colleges publicize faculty research? How many media interviews for faculty and staff do different types of colleges set up annually? How do colleges use video and photography in college promotion and public relations? What is the role of the public relations department in the college’s website management and social media presence? How many man hours of labor is the college marketing and pr staff devoting to the college’s social media presence? Does the college use outside public relations firms?

This journalism master's project includes a professional work component and an analysis component. The professional work component details the author's experiences working in University Affairs, the main public relations office for the University of Missouri. Field notes and samples of work are included. In the analysis component the author examines the practices of seven public relations departments at institutions of higher education with stated goals for internal relations within their academic institution. This section includes a literature review, interviews and analysis of results.