Founded in 1967, the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) is the foremost organization for students interested in public relations and communications. The organization is a strong advocate for rigorous academic standards for public relations education, the highest ethical principles and diversity in the profession. The organization is made up of more than 10,000 students and advisors organized into 300 plus Chapters in the United States, Argentina, Colombia and Peru. 

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UNC Pembroke's chapter of PRSSA is one of ten chapters on North Carolina university campuses and one of more than 270 chapters on college campuses across the country.

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Getting involved with UNCP's chapter of PRSSA was the best decision that I ever made. Not only did joining PRSSA strengthened my PR and communication skills, but it also helped me establish connections with other PRSSA students and professionals. 

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I first joined PRSSA in the Fall semester of 2016. I was excited to get involved with a club that offered so much to mass communication students. I was looking for an organization to join that I could immediately make an impact on. That's exactly what happened! When I joined, the chapter was looking for a secretary. I immediately volunteered! At the time, I didn't know much about the club or PRSSA, but I was eager to learn more about the organization and the public relations field. 

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My duties as secretary were to take minutes during each meeting and update the member directory and calendar. After my first semester of being secretary, I was elected president. My duties as president were to oversee all the meetings, complete tasks for the Star Chapter Award, research and plan trips to PR firms, attend PRSSA and PRSA events and work with executive board members to create chapter goals. 

 

Since we were such a small chapter, becoming the new president was challenging. During the previous semester, we had approximately 20 members. Our membership dropped drastically because all the members graduated, excluding myself and three others. I would say that my toughest experience with becoming president was the rebuilding process. Not only did I want the chapter to grow, but I also wanted to carry on the success that the previous president started. The one thing that I found to be very challenging during the rebuilding process was finding out what the chapter did wrong in years past, and turn it around. 

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My goal when becoming president was to get the chapter's name better known around campus. As a result, our chapter was doing a lot more than in past years. As an organization, we were attending more PRSSA and PRSA events in North Carolina. As an organization we attended the Southeastern Regional Conference in Chapel Hill. This was the first regional conference that the organization had attended in years. 

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The Spring of 2018 was a huge semester for our organization.

During this semester, our chapter attended a second Southeastern Regional Conference in Raleigh, in March of 2018. The name of the conference was known as STEMulate PR, and was hosted by NC State PRSSA. The conference featured two days of public relations professionals who worked with the STEM process on a daily basis. 

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One month later, our chapter hosted its very first event on campus. This was a big deal for our chapter. In years past, we were never able to host an event because we were so small. Thankfully, that same semester we saw a growth in membership which allowed us to establish a planning committee. 

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For the event, Dr. Denise Hill, from Elon University, discussed the role that minorities played in public relations. We ended up surpassing our goal for attendance. By the end of the event, we ended up having 60 people in the audience. Not only did mass communication majors attend the event, but also history and African American studies majors attended. 

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In addition, each year the chapter hosted an annual golf tournament fundraiser. The golf tournament was very popular around campus, with professors, students, faculty and staff all participating in the tournament. 

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That year was the chapter's ninth annual Make Par for PR golf tournament, and the most successful by far. Each year the tournament would bring in approximately $2,000 dollars.

 

As planning began for the tournament, the goal was to have 35 players. Once tee time came around, we had 48 players! In the previous eight year history of the tournament, the field never surpassed 30 players. 

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The success of the tournament was a huge relief to those of us on the planning committee. Not only was the tournament a fundraiser for the chapter, but it was also our senior project for the public relations capstone class, also known as PR Campaigns. The capstone class was made up of only 10 students. Out of the 10 students, five of us were already PRSSA members. Our professor decided to have the five of us PRSSA members plan the golf tournament, while the other five students worked with another client. 

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I was the team captain for the planning of the tournament. As part of the public relations capstone class, we used the RPIE process to plan the tournament. As the team captain, I was responsible for making sure each team member was on task, and that we followed the campaign calendar. 

 

For such a small PRSSA chapter, we successfully planned and implemented three events within two months. The one thing that I am most proud of is that we overcame the membership issues, and were able to plan three successful events. 

 

Here is the video from the golf tournament: 

 

 
 

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