University of Georgia Students Share Bond with Hong Kong Baptist University

AdPR students visiting the School of
Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University

HONG KONG (May 13, 2014) – Six students from UGA participating in the AdPR China study abroad program visited the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) to exchange and discuss information about public relations and advertising curriculum.

The students discovered several similarities between their majors at HKBU compared to those at UGA. For example, HKBU has a student agency that participates in work similar to AdPR’s Creative Consultants or participation in the Bateman student case-study competition.

The “To Fuse the Separation” campaign was especially interesting to UGA students. The project was a logo design featuring three Chinese characters meaning ‘separation’ and ‘harmony’ fused together to signify unity to the Chinese population.  The goal of the project was to encourage strangers to treat each other like they are close friends and family.

Additionally, students toured the Academy of Film and its studios, and enjoyed an authentic Chinese dinner with Dr. Juan Meng and Dr. Flora Hung-Baesecke.

Dr. Juan Meng selected as UGA Teaching Academy Fellow

Dr. Juan Meng

Congratulations to Dr.Juan Meng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, who was selected to participation in the University of Georgia’s 2013-2014 Teaching Academy Fellows Program. The program, coordinated by UGA’s Teaching Academy, with funding support from the Office of Provost and PricewaterhouseCoopers, seeks to promote and celebrate excellence in teaching, and to foster learning through inquiry.         

“Teaching is one of the most important things in my academic career, so I feel so honored to be selected,” said Dr. Meng. “I have heard lots of great comments about the Teaching Academy Fellows Program as a wonderful early-career mentoring program.”

Dr. Meng, along with four other early career faculty members and a pair of Teaching Academy mentors, will interact within her group and with all other early career faculty members in the program during the academic year. Dr. Meng will be observing classes and having members of the program observe her classes as well. “The program is a great opportunity to share my knowledge and experience in teaching with other fellows to enhance the development of the teaching community and mission at UGA and eventually maximize my students’ learning experience,” said Dr. Meng.

"We are very excited," said Tom Reichert, AdPR Department Head. "All of our recently hired assistant professors are participating as Teaching Academy Fellows or fellows in the Lilly Program. It shows their commitment to teaching excellence."

New Faculty Spotlight: Juan Meng

Juan Meng

What is your new position at Grady? What classes (if any) are you teaching this year? Assistant Professor in Public Relations at the Department of Advertising & Public Relations. I am teaching a PR Campaigns class and a PR Research class in this semester.

Past academic positions: Before joining Grady, I was Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton and Oklahoma State University, where I taught PR Principles, Writing, Management, Campaign courses and special topics in International PR and Social Media at both under- and graduate levels.  

What are your research interests and why? Are there any projects/publications you're working on that you can share a little about at this time? My current research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of strategic leadership in public relations, the theory development in public relations leadership, the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods to study participation in leadership development process from an international perspective, and multinational corporates’ reputation and knowledge management strategies in emerging markets. Currently, I am the co-principal investigator of a global public relations leadership research project  funded by the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama, IBM, and Heyman Associates. It is so wonderful to get the opportunity to work with a group of excellent public relations scholars in more than 19 countries and three regions. We have implemented a global survey and conducted multiple in-depth interviews with senior public relations and communication practitioners all over the world during the past six months. We are trying to organize a public relations leadership summit in early November in Chicago to share our results and findings to a diverse group of audience. This is going to be a really exciting event.

What are you most looking forward to while you're at Grady/UGA?

I love the atmosphere of being on UGA campus. I am really looking forward to working with a group of brilliant scholars here at Grady! I am also looking forward to working with our Grady students, helping them build up strong networks, and seeing them be successful!