Well, it was the first week back to school!  I have started my third year in the doctoral program here at the University of Tennessee, and my fifth year in graduate school.  So, after this year – I will have been in graduate school longer than in undergrad!  Amazing!  Anyway, this past week a lot has been going on for me – here are a few things that have been happening:

Teaching: I will be teaching two courses this upcoming fall semester.  I am currently teaching Public Relations Cases at Tennessee.  This is an upper division class in Public Relations where we will be studying iconic case studies that have helped shape the public relations professions, as well as looking towards the future in terms of incorporating innovative strategies that reach new target audiences.

PR Case Studies was definitely one of my favorite classes that I took during my undergrad program at Florida, and at USC.  I had the wonderful opportunity to take PR Cases at USC with Jennifer Floto – it was a great class and Professor Floto provided great insights into how to think strategically. I had my first class on Thursday, and the students that I have a really great – all have experience in PR in terms of working and having internships.  I am really looking forward to the semester. 🙂

I will be also teaching a PR class for West Virginia in their IMC Master’s program, but the class starts in October.  I am really looking forward to it! 🙂

Taking classes: This semester, I will be taking two classes that will focus on measurement.  The first class I will be taking is titled Measurement, which is a Marketing course.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the Marketing classes at Tennessee.  I am also taking a Psychology Statistics course – it is also a great course, and I believe that it is important to take as many method courses as possible. 🙂

Reflecting back on a fabulous summer: In many ways, I have had one busy summer!  From going to four conferences (yes – I did say four, and three of them were one after an other!)  I got the chance to go abroad and present at two international research conferences in Amsterdam and Greece.  I also got the chance to present at APS in San Francisco in May – and then headed to the Reputation Institute Conference in Amsterdam, and immediately head to Athens, Greece for the ATINER conference.  I got to play tourist with Mom and Kristin around Athens, which really was special for me. 🙂 In August, I got the chance to present at the AEJMC conference in Boston.  It was a fun and exciting summer for me in terms of research.

I also got the chance to go home for a week and visit Mom, Dad, and Karla.  We had an amazing time – from cooking fabulous appleflaps to going to see Harry Potter – it was really great and relaxing!

We also got the chance to head down to Los Angeles the day before I headed back to Tennessee. We got to go to El Cholo’s for lunch – absolutely amazing!!! This is definitley a Freberg family favorite place to go – the food was just spectacular!  I also got the chance to go and visit USC as well.  It has been two years since I graduated from USC with my Master’s degree in Strategic Public Relations.  I went by the USC Track and Field office, and got to see Head Coach Ron Allice.  It was great to see everyone again and to hear that things are going well – I am looking forward to the upcoming season.  I also got the chance to go by USC Annenberg – they were having their graduate student orientation.  It was great seeing everyone!  🙂

Anyway, it was a wonderful summer, and I am looking forward to what the fall has to offer.  Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen