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High honour for Waikato’s Management Communication
The Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato Management School has received certification from the Public Relations Society of America. Represented by Dr Margalit Toledano and Professor David McKie, the certificate was presented at the PRSA International Conference held in Sand Diego last month.
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is the foremost body of PR practitioners and educators, with 22,000 members and 10,000 affiliated students. The PRSA Certification in Education for Public Relations (CEPR) has been awarded to only 22 universities in the world.
To meet the requirements of the CEPR, the Management Communication Department submitted a dossier of information to establish that its programme had academic credibility and adequately prepared communication practitioners for the market. Waikato Management School then hosted a three-day site visit by two PRSA reviewers who interviewed a range of staff, students, alumni, employers and internship providers, and practitioners associated with the University.
Waikato is one of just three universities outside the United States to have won certification.
Dr Toledano, who teaches PR at Waikato and is herself the first New Zealand Fellow of the PRSA, says the reviewers noted that firms offering internships to Waikato students particularly valued the fact that the PR programme sits within the Management School, so students are exposed to business concepts from day one.
“The PRSA’s endorsement puts Waikato on the global map,” says Associate Professor Debashish Munshi, chair of the Department of Management Communication where the PR major is taught. “This certification says our graduates are ready to take a job anywhere in the world.”
Dr Munshi says PRSA certification shows Waikato stands head and shoulders above the rest. “No other institution in the Southern Hemisphere has PRSA certification,” he says. “It’s an international guarantee for prospective students of the quality and practice-relevance they’ll find at Waikato Management School.”
Delegate at Large
At the PRSA conference in San Diego, Dr Margalit Toledano was elected as the PRSA Assembly Delegate at Large. That means she’ll represent international members of PRSA. About 200 members live outside the US and are not represented by any chapter. Dr Toledano was elected with Tony Bradley from the UK to develop a plan for PRSA to improve its communication and services to international members.
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