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Quality undergraduate PR programs enhance the professional status of our field and help ensure that a continuous . stream of prepared young professionals enter it. But how are quality PR programs assessed? One option is PRSA s Certified in Education for Public Relations (CEPR) program.
PRSA Certification lasts six years, and two major factors drive schools to participate in the voluntary certification process, says past PRSA President Betsy L. Plank,APR, Fellow PRSA, who served on the first certification review team at :. BrighamYoung University. One factor is the rapid evolution of PR practice and the concurrent need for curricula to keep pace with it, she says, and the second is the growing number of college students interested in PR careers.
"Certification is one of the most substantive contributions by PRSA to education and the students who are our next generation of professionals," Plank says."Many educators whose programs have been certified report that the review has escalated their studies at the critical - administrative level and that the recommendations of the review team have been implemented.We can be very proud of those schools that have volunteered for reviews."
CEPR was approved by the PRSA board of directors in 1989, following the second PRSA Commission on Undergraduate Education report.The voluntary program was...