School Should Always Be in Session
Written by Ken Kerrigan
Recently I walked into a classroom at NYU to start my tenth year as a faculty member of the School of Professional Studies Master’s in Public Relations and Corporate Communication program. Every semester is like coming home again.
Nearly 35 years ago, I graduated from NYU with an undergraduate degree in political science and communications. “Phew, I’m done with school!” I thought to myself with a sense of excitement and maybe a little bit of exhaustion, too. Boy was I wrong. The profession of public relations requires constant learning – not just for the skills you need to do your job, but also the insights that will help you truly understand the business of your clients or the organizations where you work. And those are the insights that will allow you to speak to a CFO or CEO just as readily as you would a chief marketing officer.
When I donned my cap and gown all those years ago, I had no idea I might need to know how to read a financial statement or how to frame strategies to deal with NGOs or shareholder activists or give on the spot communications counsel when a regulatory agency had questions about a client’s business operations. Those are just three of the many challenges I’ve faced in my career where I had to quickly learn on the job.?
Earning your “seat at the table.”
For virtually every profession, a commitment to ongoing learning is a requirement. To maintain their license to operate, every year lawyers, accountants, financial advisors and more need to prove that they’re continuing to sharpen their skills as they seek to master the latest developments in their industry. Professional associations track their progress and a failure to learn is not an option.
Unfortunately, that’s not true in public relations. Yes, the Public Relations Society of America – through its APR accreditation program – requires submitted proof of ongoing learning , but practitioners who can place the letters APR after their name (much like an accountant would write CPA) are relatively few and far between. I received my accreditation in 1998 and more people have asked why I did that than have congratulated me.?
This may explain why an ongoing lament in the profession has been, “we don’t have a seat at the table.” It’s rare that public relations reports to the C-Suite. And the reason may be that the typical practitioner has never been taught how to speak “the language of business.” When that happens, it’s easy to be seen as an order taker, vendor or worse “overhead.”
Time to go back to school.
Over 60 years ago the “father of public relations,” Ed Bernays, outlined what he thought were the ideal characteristics of the public relations professional. Among those skills was possessing an intellectual curiosity. Bernays, who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, viewed the practice of public relations as a social science that required a learned skill and an intricate understanding of human behavior. [1] He was also a faculty member at NYU and taught the very first class in public relations at the university’s business school back in 1923.??
Bernays spent much of his life fighting to make public relations a licensed profession, where only the best and brightest were able to counsel clients. He never succeeded. But if we don’t have licensing, we must have ongoing learning, just like virtually every other profession.
If Bernays was able to walk into my NYU classroom this semester and see the faces of students from all over the world eager to learn and advance their careers, he may have felt right at home. I know I did. And when the first class was done, and I saw hundreds of students and fellow faculty make their way to the elevators, it somehow felt like I never left.??
School is in session. Let the learning commence.
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Ken Kerrigan ?is the Vice President of Infinite Global, an international communications firm specializing in public relations, branding and content, and a faculty member for the?Integrated Marketing & Communications Department ?in the Division of Programs in Business at NYU School of Professional Studies.
[1] Edward L. Bernays,?Your Future in Public Relations?(New York: Richards Rosen Press, 1961), 66-67.
A New Curriculum for the CMO and CCO?and their teams is needed?that is both Human-Centered and Data-Driven, balancing the?spreadsheet?and the?story, or the?poetry?and the?plumbing, or the?math?and the?meaning?of an integrated approach to marketing and communications.?And this education needs to be rooted in a sense of personal and professional purpose and authenticity and founded on a platform of lifelong learning. At NYU’s School of Professional Studies, we have recently recommitted ourselves to some guiding principles about the role that a globally-recognized academic institution and an applied professional education can deliver:
We believe the best programs are designed to meet?continuously changing market needs—to help executives lead business transformation, drive innovation and achieve?long-term, sustainable growth.
In Spring 2023, NYU’s School of Professional Studies will welcome the first cohort in its?Executive Master's in Marketing and Strategic Communications ?designed to address the needs of professionals in marketing and PR on the path to C-Suite leadership.?Leading marketers like Antonio Lucio, the former Global CMO of Facebook, and public relations and corporate relations professionals like Kathryn Metcalfe, CCO at CVS Health have already been moved to praise the effort.?
We are delighted to be pioneering a new form of education and engagement for our industry, next spring.
To learn more about the program, please visit?sps.nyu.edu/execms .
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Well said, Ken!