Besides being more than a little excited about baseball like everyone else in Missouri, we’re thinking a lot about the future careers of our students this week here at UCM. I was fortunate to attend the kickoff to the University’s Career Fair on Wednesday and was encouraged to see a record number of employers on campus actively looking to hire our students. And Thursday, we have our biggest day of the year when our PRSSA chapter holds our annual PR Pro Day.

This year seven outstanding professionals from many different disciplines within the field will be on campus to join our two professional advisers to give our students insight into our career field and tips about how to get that huge first job.

PR Pro Day is especially important to me as I had the opportunity to be on the panel several times. It was the first step in the process of my own personal revelation than I wanted to spend my time right here, teaching and mentoring our PR students. It is a day filled with energy, the students are excited and the pros get a chance to share their knowledge. There is also nothing like spending the afternoon on a college campus, it is almost always more fun than the office!

And to make it an even bigger week, Dr. Hansen-Horn and Dr. Horn travel to the PRSA national meeting in Washington D.C. this weekend to accept our program’s certification in public relations education, CEPR. We’re one of 38 schools around the world to be certified. We’re honored and excited about what this means for our students. We’ll have much more on this topic soon.

So, thanks in advance to our professionals. Your contribution of your time and talents is greater than you might realize. You could very well change someone’s life.

Tom Heapes
Associate Professor