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Ben Siegel
The Schoonover Center
You hear the expression “Bobcats helping Bobcats” a lot around Ohio University, and you see examples of it even more often. It comes up when an alum connects current students to a life-changing internship, when two students collaborate across majors and time zones to launch an album, and when a senior takes the time to show a first-year how to borrow a camera from the equipment room.
For the members of the OHIO Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), “Bobcats helping Bobcats” is a theme that recurs especially often. In a recent interview, a group of PRSSA members discussed the many ways the award-winning student organization has helped them forge personal and professional connections in addition to building their confidence, expertise and leadership portfolios.
Laine Dannemiller, a junior majoring in journalism strategic communication and minoring in retail merchandising, joined PRSSA as a sophomore in fall 2020. Having had her first year at OHIO interrupted by COVID-19, she said she felt like she’d found “her place” when she attended her first virtual PRSSA meeting.
“You're just surrounded by people who want to support you, not only professionally, but just to be there for you and be a good friend and invite you to things,” Dannemiller said. “It's just a great community that I've loved so much.”
The four students interviewed agreed that they were welcomed into PRSSA from the beginning. Sophomore communication studies major Allison Young said her first meeting “was just the greatest meeting ever,” and that the size of the tight-knit community—both current students and alumni—left quite an impression.
“It was insane how big this network was,” she said.
Young said her experience joining PRSSA has revealed opportunities she never expected and built up her confidence in the future.
“So much anxiety has been lifted thinking about doing those internships and connecting with people,” Young said. “Knowing I have so many connections I didn't even realize I had in the PR world is awesome to think about.”
Olivia Christiansen and Kaleb Gongwer are both seniors and members of the executive board (or “exec”) in positions that have allowed them to develop skills and expand their network.
“I am the executive vice president, and so it's my job to recruit the speakers who come talk to us every week,” Gongwer said. “I'm talking to more than 30 professionals, inviting them and then connecting with them on a regular basis. I'm building a portfolio and making all these connections at the same time. By the time I'm ready to enter the real world, I feel like I’ll have it all together, and I would have never felt that way before PRSSA.”
In addition to the visiting professionals and networking trips, PRSSA includes peer mentoring programs and social activities. All four students said these opportunities, including a full Thanksgiving dinner and the annual Homecoming gathering, have enhanced their sense of belonging and community.
Even when the pandemic forced them to meet virtually, the group made the most out of events like mentor/mentee game night.
“I have never laughed so hard in my life and I was sitting alone in my bedroom,” Christiansen said. “I think it also is a testament to the relationships that we all have with each other, even the connections we made in a virtual setting.”
Those connections and all the hard work that went into them were certainly a contributing factor in the chapter winning the 2021 Dr. F.H. Teahan Award for Outstanding Chapter . The national award recognizes diversity and inclusion practices, university outreach as well as active membership.
Christiansen, the current vice president of external relations for the organization, said the active membership feature stands out.
“There's not anybody on the roster that I would consider somebody who's not invested in the organization, and I think that's a really, really big deal and something that I take a lot of pride in,” she said.
For Young, involvement in PRSSA has been transformative in this, her first year as a member, and led to growth she didn’t expect to see as a high school student starting college in the midst of a global pandemic.
“It was a big leap from then to what I'm doing now. I never believed I could be actually ‘doing college’ well, but I feel like I'm doing really well,” she said. “I think person I was in high school would be really proud.”