Professor Sallot honored for top educator award

Much congratulations to Dr. Lynne Sallot, professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, for being honored for the 2014 "Milestones in Mentoring" award by the Plank Center. Dr. Sallot has taught at UGA since 1993. She has been honored with several department, university, and national teaching awards for her excellent work in the classroom. "Dr. Sallot is has influenced thousands of students as a leading public relations professor," said Tom Reichert, head of UGA's AdPR department. "I can't think of anyone who has been recognized for her work in the classroom more than Dr. Sallot. She is very special."

Dr. Sallot will be honored October 30, 2014, in Chicago. She'll be introduced by Neil Hirsch, a former student of Dr. Sallot, current PRSA-Georgia president, and AdPR Executive Council member.

AdPR students develop communication strategies for UGA’s Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness

Students presenting the communication plan

Dr. Lynne Sallot, Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, and her Grady students assisted the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness with new communication strategies to improve the office’s service within UGA. 

During the past spring, Dr. Sallot charged her 25 seniors and master's students from her Public Relations Campaigns class with producing a proposed PR/communications campaign for UGA administration to extend awareness of best practices of emergency preparedness to UGA students, faculty and staff. Dr. Sallot’s students conducted original research with UGA's 35+ peer and aspirational institutions to see what they were doing: safety, security and emergency preparedness, and they also conducted a dozen focus groups with UGA students, and survey UGA faculty.

The recommendations gathered were grounded in their research findings, and the class presented their findings and recommendations in a presentation open to the public at the end the semester.

Based on that, the new communication strategies include a revised departmental web site, a new logo and an improved communication strategy. 

One of the first strategies already applied was the transition of the office’s name, which changed on June 1 to the Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Study finds UGA PR program most prolific in online PR research

Kaye Sweetser

University of Georgia public relations faculty ranked number one in a recent analysis of research about "online" public relations efforts. The study was conducted by Drs. Lan Ye and Eyun-Jung Ki, faculty at the University of Alabama, and was published in the Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 24, No. 5, 2012. The analysis examined peer-reviewed articles published from 1992 to 2009.

The University of Georgia ranked first with a calculated score of 9.24, followed most closely by the University of Florida with a score of 3.66, Rutgers University with a score of 3.65, and the University of Maryland with a score of 3.00. Associate professor Kaye Sweetser led the UGA public relations faculty with nine published articles relating to online public relations, followed by Professor Lynne Sallot with four articles, Associate Professor Bryan Reber with three articles, Professor Ruthann W. Lariscy with two articles and Associate Professor Carolina Acosta-Alzuru with one article.

"UGA's ADPR department received a score of 9.24 in this study.That score is a combination of the number of articles produced by the university and the number of researchers from that university," said Dr. Reber. "The second-best university in this study was Florida with a score of 3.66.  So, you can see that Georgia really dominated in research about online public relations."

To compute the scores, the study assigned a credit of 1.0 to each article. For a single-author article, the author and the author's institution was assigned 1.0 credit. For multi-authored submissions, the authors and their institutions would receive partial credit. For a two-author article, an author would receive a credit of 0.5, while a three-author submission would give each author a 0.33 score. 

"The results of this analysis show that University of Georgia is the top source of cutting-edge knowledge about the nature and effects of social and digital public relations practice," said Tom Reichert, Department Head of Advertising and Public Relations. "Our public relations faculty are leading the field in this important area of scholarship."

Athens Regional's Helene Schwartz Visits Grady PR Class

Helene Schwartz

Helene Schwartz, director of the Athens Regional Medical Center Foundation since 1993, met with Dr. Lynne Sallot’s “PR and Fundraising” class on Sept. 25 to discuss charitable giving. Schwartz ,a UGA graduate, has worked at Athens Regional Medical Center in Athens, Georgia since 1993 as Director of the Athens Regional Foundation. 

“Helene spoke about the hospital’s enviable employees’ gift program -- more than 70 percent of ARMC employees donate to the foundation. And she mentioned that a recent grant proposal she wrote asked for that information, so we learned how important employee giving is,” said Dr.Sallot.

Schwartz also discussed how the foundation works with its five boards based on different types and levels of giving, special events that benefit ARMC, and showed a new video to raise funds for an expanded neo-natal intensive care unit, Sallot said.

“Helene is also a role model for volunteering and was honored for her work in the community earlier this semester,” Dr. Sallot said.

Dr. Sallot is teaching a "PR Fundraising" as a special topics class primarily for UGA AdPR majors. Her class complements another special topics course, "Philanthropy and Higher Education," taught this semester by Tom Landrum, UGA's Vice President of the Office of External Affairs.