Comments on: A PR Program That Doesn’t Teach Communication Research? http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/03/11/a-pr-program-that-doesnt-teach-communication-research/ Public Relations :: Marcom Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:39:01 -0600 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Jill Pyle http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/03/11/a-pr-program-that-doesnt-teach-communication-research/comment-page-1/#comment-4338 Jill Pyle Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:41:23 +0000 http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/03/11/a-pr-program-that-doesnt-teach-communication-research/#comment-4338 I'm a PR student from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the third year of the program students are required to take a research methods course. For this course, I worked with a group of my peers in an attempt to answer the questions: are MSVU PR students ready to practice "new PR"? I blogged the results here <a href="http://www.jillpyle.ca/blog/?p=25" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I’m a PR student from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the third year of the program students are required to take a research methods course. For this course, I worked with a group of my peers in an attempt to answer the questions: are MSVU PR students ready to practice “new PR”? I blogged the results here here.

]]> By: Alan Chumley http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/03/11/a-pr-program-that-doesnt-teach-communication-research/comment-page-1/#comment-4331 Alan Chumley Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:10:19 +0000 http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2007/03/11/a-pr-program-that-doesnt-teach-communication-research/#comment-4331 Robert, I absolutely agree with you on the importance of a significant research component of a curriculum. I soapbox on the topic as often as anyone will listen. :) I suppose I should reiterate that my obersavtion was indeed only anecdotal and that I was focusing on 2-3-year community college-level diploma programs and/or 1-year post-graduate certificate schools in Canada. There is one full 4-year undergraduate honours degree in PR in Canada and I suspect that they do offer a research course. By all accounts it is an excellent program. I can think of only 2 graduate level PR programs (an MBA in PR from Royal Roads University and a forthcoming Master's in Communications Management from Syracuse/Newhouse & McMaster/Degroote.) Whether or not those programs inluce a course on research is not clear. But I suppose this all comes down to the fact that Canada, compared at least to the U.S. (I won't profess to have any sense as to the situation in other countries) is a much smaller 'market.' That means fewer students, seeking fewer specialized degrees in fewer schools with fewer resources. That plus the unfortunate view that PR trianing sa vocational and not so much theoretical has relegated (largely but not entirely) PR education in Canada to the community colleges. Keep up the measurement fight! :) Cheers Robert,

I absolutely agree with you on the importance of a significant research component of a curriculum. I soapbox on the topic as often as anyone will listen. :)

I suppose I should reiterate that my obersavtion was indeed only anecdotal and that I was focusing on 2-3-year community college-level diploma programs and/or 1-year post-graduate certificate schools in Canada.

There is one full 4-year undergraduate honours degree in PR in Canada and I suspect that they do offer a research course. By all accounts it is an excellent program. I can think of only 2 graduate level PR programs (an MBA in PR from Royal Roads University and a forthcoming Master’s in Communications Management from Syracuse/Newhouse & McMaster/Degroote.) Whether or not those programs inluce a course on research is not clear.

But I suppose this all comes down to the fact that Canada, compared at least to the U.S. (I won’t profess to have any sense as to the situation in other countries) is a much smaller ‘market.’ That means fewer students, seeking fewer specialized degrees in fewer schools with fewer resources. That plus the unfortunate view that PR trianing sa vocational and not so much theoretical has relegated (largely but not entirely) PR education in Canada to the community colleges.

Keep up the measurement fight! :)
Cheers

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