After months of planning, dozens of meetings, sleepless nights and days of crying (just kidding…not really…) Being A Full Service PRo is officially OVER!
The conference was amazing! All of our hard work paid off and watching it all come together this past weekend felt surreal. If you couldn’t attend the conference, here’s a brief recap of what you missed.
Friday, March 22 we kicked off the conference with a reception dinner at the Hard Rock Café. This was an informal networking dinner that guests could attend. Our Chapter President, Chelsea Seidel and our President-elect, Emma McClain gave a special toast for Temple PRSSA’s 50th anniversary.
Don’t even get me started on the food… it was AMAZING! We had cheesesteak egg rolls, coconut chicken and grilled cheese with tomato sauce in a shot glass! I know it sounds crazy, but it was delicious.
Saturday, March 23 was the big day! Over 130 students from 24 different universities came to our campus to learn from industry professionals in the communications industry.
The conference began with opening remarks from Sr. Assoc. Dean, Deborah Cai and a few words from Mayor Kenney. Afterwards, we had our first breakout session that included 3 panels that students could choose from. The panels included the Agency/Client Relations Panel, Fake News & Ethics Panel and the Diversity Panel.
After our first breakout session, we jumped right into the second one. Those panels included Special Events, Professional Development and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Next, we arrived to one of my favorite parts of the day… LUNCH TIME!
Although yes, I was starving, the food wasn’t the only reason why I was excited for lunch. One of the reasons we decided to host a regional conference this year was to celebrate our 50th anniversary. So, in honor of that, we took a walk down memory lane and showed a video of Temple PRSSA over the years.
Afterwards, to honor our wonderful faculty advisor Gregg Feistman, we surprised him with a video of past PRSSA members expressing their gratitude towards him. He loved it!
Shortly after we had our luncheon panel: PR in the Age of the #MeToo Movement. The panel was moderated by LiRon Anderson-Bell, an assistant professor at Temple and included Mary Austen, President & CEO of Tierney, Afia Ohene-Frempong, Communications Manager at PECO and Megan Smith, Founder/President of Brownstone PR. The panel was awesome—very informative and very entertaining.
Before the conference ended, we had one more breakout session. The panels included Engaging Influencer Campaigns, The Convergence of Advertising and PR and Analytics.
Not to brag, but… we had amazing speakers! Each panel was filled with highly seasoned professionals and offered great advice and insights into the industry.
As the conference came to a close, students had the opportunity to network with each other and few professionals in the industry.
Overall, I can confidently say that Being A Full Service PRo was a huge success! Planning this conference has definitely been a beast, but it was extremely worth it. And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing!
This blog post was written by Shania Genwright, Assistant Conference Coordinator.