Teaching

Teaching is more than just about my spewing information to my students. It is a process by which I engage with my students to learn from them just as they learn from me. It's the proverbial two-way street.

I taught my first college course, Technical Writing, in fall 1975 at the University of Vermont. From then until 2001, I also taught courses in communication methods, graphic design, communication methods, gender and science, public relations, and race and culture at the University of Vermont and St. Michael's College, and also at the universities of Idaho and Tennessee and the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in Cardiff. I’ve also taught many workshops in marketing, grammar and graphic design when I worked for the Extension Service and Agricultural Experiment Stations in Minnesota, Vermont, Idaho and Tennessee.

I became a full-time teacher in fall 2001 when I was hired by Florida A&M University, a historically black institution in Tallahassee. It’s been the best – but most demanding – job I’ve ever had. I’ve taught six different courses, focusing on writing skills and research methodology. Here are summaries of the three courses I teach most often.

Language Skills for Journalists

This course focuses on grammar and Associated Press style. To help students remember some of the hundreds of grammar rules, I refer to my “Grammar Hints of the Week.”

To help students remember the eight parts of speech, I use the mnemonic "VAINCAPP" – Verbs, Adjectives, Interjections, Nouns, Conjunctions, Adverbs, Pronouns, Prepositions. Here's a a 16-minute video that describes the eight parts of speech in more detail.

To practice their grammar skills, students complete exercises on a special section of Dr. Gerald Grow's Web site "Newsroom 101." According to the Web site: "Newsroom 101 offers more than 2,000 free, self-instructional exercises for journalists, writers, editors, students and others who want to review (or learn) journalistic language, as governed by the Associated Press Stylebook. Visitors to this site have completed more than 2 million exercises."

PR Methods

This course teaches students how to create a media kit for a specific client. Students prepare fact sheets, news releases, speeches, radio and TV public service announcements, brochures, media alerts, pitch letters and other PR communication products. Students also practice their design skills by preparing a letterhead, brochure, business card, flier, etc.

Students prepare their media kits in print and electronic formats, posting the items on their Web sites. We use David Meerman Scott's book The New Rules of Marketing & PR as our textbook.

Here are a few of the templates and fact sheets for this course:
• “Strategies and Tactics”
• “News Release Template”
• “Public Affairs Script”
• “Pitch/Cover Letter”

PR Research & Strategies

This course, listed in the course catalog as Case Studies in Public Relations, focuses on teamwork, research, presentation and social media skills. I prepared a handout titled “PR Research Methods,” which highlights such techniques as benchmarking, content analysis, SWOT analysis, focus groups, surveys and PR metrics. Students learn why and how to use social media to achieve communication goals.

I have students create their own blogs and respond to a class blog, which I created for the course. Here is a link to that blog. We also use Twitter, wikis and a variety of other social media to share information.

Recently, I've been using global climate change as the subject matter through which we explore public relations theory and methodology. We read Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, which provides wonderful insight into how social epidemics arise. We read Thomas Friedman's book Hot, Flat, & Crowded, which is a clearly written analysis of the historic, economic, social, political, cultural and environmental implications of global climate change. Here is a PowerPoint presentation, titled "Energy-Climate Era," that I created tointroduce the concepts in Friedman's book.

In spring 2010, I'm using James Hoggan's book Climate Coverup, which examines case studies of the climate warming denial movement from a public relations perspective.

Too often public relations practitioners – deservedly – receive negative press for their willingness to "spin" or "sell" questionable ideas and practices that mislead or, in extreme cases, harm or even kill people (e.g., pitching arguments for why smoking is not bad for you but rather is just a "personal choice"). One of my goals is to help students understand the implications of the choices they and their clients make and then to act ethically. This approach reinforces the Public Relations Society of America's Code of Ethics.