The Public Relations Student Society of America club at Plattsburgh State is used as a tool for public relation students to build connections and learn how to network after college. It became a national chapter on the PSUC campus in September 2013.
Like other clubs and organizations on campus, the PRSSA has an executive board including positions such as president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and communication coordinator, which members can be elected into.
Throughout the academic year, the PRSSA puts on events for PSUC public relation students to help them build their professional skills for after college. Their annual spring event in the spring, called PR Day, helps the students get together in a fun way. With previous themes, such as fashion PR and medical PR, the students learn about different areas in their professional field. Because of the upcoming elections, this year’s theme is political PR.
PRSSA also hosts the Mullet event, which is an event for students to learn about professionalism on certain topics, such as how to use LinkedIn and how to present themselves in the professional world.
Recently, the group was awarded the Presidents Cup, for which they earned $500 for their budget and were recognized as the No.1 club on campus by the PSUC Student Association in recognition of the events they put on and money raised. In addition to their recent awards, they also host the PRSSA Golf Tour. The last Golf Tour raised $1,200, and numbers of participants nearly doubled from the previous year.
“It’s a true professional activity that you can do here at Plattsburgh. In the business world, golf is where a lot business deals get talked about,” Rachael Jurek, the PRSSA academic adviser said.
Jurek was previously an adviser for the PRSSA chapter at the University of Wisconsin for three years before taking on the position at PSUC.
President Flora Veitch is a senior double-majoring in public relations and communications. Veitch described her position as a manager-type position and said she wants to make sure that everyone is getting something out of PRSSA.
“I want to get people really excited about it and have our events get bigger and better each year,” she said.
With her positive attitude, Veitch hopes to double membership numbers and increase the number of members who attend the national PRSSA Conference while president.
Senior public relations major and PRSSA member Carissa Root previously attended a regional conference in Rochester where she embraced new skills to use in her school work.
”PRSSA is more of a tool that lets you expand,” Root said.
Jurek has been her professor multiple times throughout her college career, and she had encouraged Root to join PRSSA last spring. Root benefits from PRSSA by gaining good networking connections in the professional world and has the opportunity to work on event planning, which she wants to focus on after graduation.
Root said she would love to see more public relation students join the club and become involved with the campus and community.
The national conference kicks off in Atlanta this year on Nov. 6, and the PRSSA has 14 of their members attending, which is the most they’ve had attend during their three years on campus. The conference is a five-day program for PRSSA members. At the conference the students attend agency and career tours, chapter development sessions and professional development sessions.
For students who are interested in joining, the PRSSA meets every three weeks. The next meeting is on Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. in the Amnesty Room.
Email Katelyn LaPorte at katelyn.laporte@cardinalpointsonline.com
