The Public Relations Student Society of America, or PRSSA, Kent chapter is now looking at a more inclusive and energetic year after recently being nominated as the best chapter in the nation.

PRSSA Kent Faculty Adviser Michele Ewing said that she is excited about the organization’s newly elected officers for next fall.

“I’m excited. We had one of the most competitive election nights that I can remember in a long time,” Ewing said. “There were a lot of students running for the election. I love that energy.”

PRSSA Kent’s Incoming President Gabrielle Woodard said that she is ready to take on her responsibilities in her new role and is also excited about the new group of officers.

“I’m excited to work with them because they are very well-versed in what they know and they are very different people so we have a lot of ideas to pull from,” Woodard said.

Woodard studied abroad and interned in Washington D.C. during this spring semester.

She said her experience in D.C. helped her reaffirm her interest in political public relations and understand PR in the real world.

 “I’m going to use the experience to show that what you do learn in the classroom while sometimes may seem boring or pointless it is applicable and that you are going to use it and to be excited about learning it and to look for ways to apply it,” Woodard said.

Woodard said that some of the goals for next fall is to involve not only involve more majors within the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, but also outside of the college.

“It not only teaches PR majors to work with journalists, but teaches journalists that a lot of times in their work that later in their work or future that they can have a PR opportunity,” Woodard said. “It is important to get other majors involved because there are a lot of aspects in PR such as political science or fashion.”

Woodard said that mainly PR majors are white females and that she wants to improve on that aspect of diversity as well.

“I hope that we can reach out and be successful with diversity in a multiple way,” Ewing said. “I think the more diversified you can make an organization, the more likely you’ll be reaching a larger population and getting the interest and issues that we should be dealing with.”

Ewing said on her behalf as a faculty adviser that she would like to see more involvement in PRSSA Kent.

“We would like to see more members engaged in this chapter,” Ewing said. “We are close to 80 members but a lot of the core same group of people are doing everything so I think the new officers should get more people involved, especially the younger students. They’re usually the ones that are excited. I think they’ll learn a lot through hands-on experience.”

Woodard said that she wants to embrace those who are interested and to help unleash their passion in PR.

“I want to increase the enthusiasm about joining PRSSA,” Woodard said. “People don’t realize that you PR career is starting now. What you’re learning now is really going to affect your career so we want to jumpstart that.”

Contact Sabrina Scott at [email protected].