This semester of service blog post comes from Devin Knighton at Brigham Young University.
Devin Knighton, Ph.D., APR, is the Faculty Director of the BYU PR Intelligence Lab. He brought a decade of experience directing public relations for companies within the tech industry before pursuing his Ph.D. He earned his Ph.D. in Public Relations from Purdue University, his Master’s in Strategic Public Relations from George Washington University, and his Bachelor’s in Communications from Brigham Young University. This year, he is on the Advisory Committee for the International Public Relations Research Conference and is the Head of the CTEC Division within AEJMC.
2024 Spring Semester of Service Showcase:
Scaling to Service More Students – BYU PR Intelligence Lab
April 1, 2024
We, as public relations educators, share a common burden. We want to teach core principles and provide real-world experiences, often through service learning involving client work. Seeking to balance teaching principles and client work has led many to create courses that include clients, such as PR Research, Campaigns, or Capstone Projects. We may also lean on our student-run firms to provide additional client opportunities.
Still, the challenge of providing meaningful service may be more complex than simply giving students an opportunity to work with a client. Questions about ensuring that each student becomes engaged and is held accountable for the quality of work are just a couple of those challenges.
At Brigham Young University, we have wrestled with these same challenges. I am the faculty director for the BYU PR Intelligence Lab, and my purpose in this post is to share how we have devised a structure that scales to provide more students with meaningful service-learning experiences while maintaining high student engagement and producing high-quality deliverables.
A few years ago, the lab was a separate class where students had to apply to participate, and only a limited number of students could benefit from a course with a client experience. This meant many of our students missed out on service-learning opportunities unless a faculty member decided to do all the work of finding the client, organizing the class, teaching the principles, managing the client relationship, keeping students engaged, and ensuring high-quality output for the client. Professors were either avoiding service learning or burning out.
In 2021, the faculty decided to change and integrate the courses with the lab, starting with the capstone course. Instead of the professors having to find the clients, the lab would set up the client relationship. The professor would be freed up to focus on teaching core principles and mentoring students, while the lab would support the professors by managing the client relationship and checking the quality of the deliverables. The vision excited the faculty, but execution became challenging.
Although some students reported a great experience, others complained that the workload needed to be more balanced. They wanted all students to help carry the load and to remain engaged throughout the semester. We had peer evaluations, but we needed a better structure and system to get more students engaged.
Part of the problem with having a client in a course with 20 students is that it can be challenging for the faculty member to divide up the project so each student has meaningful work to do. We made a bold move, and rather than pulling back, we pressed on the gas pedal.
We increased the client load from one client per capstone to four. This would put each student on a team with four to five students, who would have their own client to focus on during the semester. The lab would have to locate and find 10 – 12 client projects a semester. Grades would be based on quantity and quality of work, and students would feel social accountability to their peers, the professors, and the lab staff. The new approach promised academic accountability and social pressure to ensure engagement and output quality.
The big question, however, was whether having so many client projects in the classes would crush the faculty. Could it work to have a faculty member-run four high-quality client projects as part of a single course load?
We wondered if our idea was too ambitious. We knew we had to strengthen the students and the faculty for the ideas to work. So, I set up the lab to provide each team with a student employee, which we gave the title of “Project Manager.” This would mean the professor would have four student employees helping in the class. Our full-time professional in the lab, a communications data scientist, also came to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the assigned professor during each class period to help mentor the students.
The results were that students became engaged, the quality of the deliverables was high, and the faculty felt less stressed.
To readers of this post, BYU's new approach may seem audacious and expensive. We all operate on limited budgets, and a legitimate question can be raised about how to fund student employees and a full-time professional in the lab. We also wondered if this approach would lead us to projects with corporations rather than non-profits.
As it turned out, several non-profits offered to pay for client work when they learned where the fees were allocated. They knew they were getting a bargain for the price compared to working with professional agencies, and they knew they were helping students find employment, learn, and grow. They also saw it as an opportunity to see which students stood out among their peers, so when internships were offered, they knew who they wanted to invite to join their team.
Since we changed the lab in 2021, the BYU PR Intelligence Lab has worked with the faculty to service more than 80 projects. Hundreds of students have participated in meaningful service opportunities, and many have now graduated and are working in PR agencies.
The key to scaling the service experiences for students at BYU has been working together as faculty and staff. For too long, PR educators have taken upon themselves the burden of doing everything for the students. We’re finding that by working together, the faculty are happier, the students are more engaged, and the service rendered meets the community's needs.
Devin Knighton
Faculty Director, BYU PR Intelligence Lab