EDUCATING THROUGH RAISING AWARENESS OF A RELEVANT ISSUE
By Dr. Breann Murphy, Associate Professor and Endowed Scholar of Diversity in Leadership and Public Relations, Department of Communication, Jacksonville State University
Public relations education is most impactful when students can relate to the content and feel a sense of connection or contribution to their community. One of the most prominent and relevant issues facing college students on university campuses is domestic violence. Through harnessing the importance of raising awareness on the prevention and signs of domestic violence, public relations undergraduate students can build critical strategic and tactical skills as well as moral values.
In Fall 2025, the seniors in my campaign management course collaborated with 2nd Chance, Inc., a nonprofit domestic violence agency located near campus. These undergraduate students were tasked with building a connection between the client and the university, while also specifically raising awareness of this client’s resources and domestic violence statistics among their own peers. To do it, the students were divided into two groups, based on the size of the class. Both student groups were assigned to develop campaigns that would engage a variety of students at the university to learn more about this important issue.
One student group partnered with the university’s athletic department to host a domestic violence awareness event at a women’s basketball game. In real time, the students in this group worked with marketing services to develop promotional videos and social media content, practicing video production and editing techniques. Additionally, for these promotions, the students learned to manage NIL and privacy concerns of athletes, as they gained consent to feature a handful of the women’s players in their promotions. This partnership educated the students on branding guidelines, as they had to cautiously balance their client’s branding with the university’s own to promote a collaborative athletic event. To make this event even more relevant to college students, they implemented a series of reels in their social media content to provide signs and tips for protection against technology abuse, such as cyberstalking, one of the most significant issues facing this generation.
The other student group in the course partnered with the university’s fraternity and sorority life to raise awareness about domestic violence prevention among Greek life. For this campaign, the students developed a holiday gift basket competition where each fraternity and sorority chapter on campus can participate in a social media competition where they share images of the itemized donations their chapter raised for the survivors working with the client. This competition will significantly increase the client’s digital footprint by combining collaborative posts and user-generated content. And, to further entice student participation in this competition, this group created a partnership with a small bakery near campus to provide the winning Greek chapter of the competition with a cupcake party to celebrate creating the “most liked” holiday gift basket on the client’s social media page. To include an educational aspect to this campaign, the students developed a domestic violence training workshop for these Greek chapters, in turn gaining compensation for the client.
From this client selection, the students demonstrated profound dedication to developing campaigns that were meaningful to the client and their peers. Their passion of giving back to the community extended beyond the course assignment. Many of the seniors in the course volunteered extra hours, outside of class time, to help with the client’s professional needs. They also raised donations among themselves to surprise the client at the end of the semester with boxes of various necessity items to provide to domestic violence survivors. Through this type of service-learning, students gained not only crucial industry skills but also an understanding that community is the epicenter of this profession.