One of the things I have tried to do for my classes is making sure my students have the opportunity to work with real clients. By providing students with these experiential learning activities and projects, they will have the ability to understand what it takes to be successful in the industry.
My PR graduate course (#FrebergPR) at the University of Louisville has a reputation for having some incredible clients joining us each year. Having the opportunity to work with clients such as Breeders’ Cup (2018), Facebook Blueprint (2019), and Chipotle (2020) opened the door to many exciting experiences and professional activities for my students.
Throughout the years, my students have been able to get some great positions from these experiences and projects, and for myself – I have been able to formulate some incredible brand partnerships for my research and work in and out of the classroom.
You may be asking yourself – Karen, what is in store for Fall 2021?
I am thrilled and excited to announce our class client for the fall semester, and it is close to home here in Louisville. Our graduate course will be partnering with Brown-Forman.
To say this is just big news is an understatement. This is HUGE! Brown-Forman is one of the biggest names in Louisville, and in fact, in the alcoholic beverage industry. There are many iconic brands that are housed under the Brown-Forman name, but there are emerging ones as well. There are two that hit close to home for me when I first moved to Louisville ten years ago. Old Forester was a brand that was a highlight for my family, and living in Tennessee, I had the chance to take my sister Kristin down to the Jack Daniels distillery before she headed to her second tour in Iraq.
How did this all come about? Well, let me tell you how.
- Your network is your net worth. I am very grateful to my good friend and colleague Joey Wagner for connecting me with BF. Thank you, Joey!
- Showing the impact of course work. I not only showed what I was doing for the class over the years, but like all businesses, showing the impact of working with class clients has had with my students. For example, how many students had jobs BEFORE they graduated? What media coverage was there related to the class projects you had? What industry speakers were part of the course? All of these were elements I shared in my meetings.
- Meetings with key executives. I have had a few great meetings already with the team and it was a lot of fun to be able to share what I have done with my classes over the years and where my students have ended up!
I am really excited to work with the team at BF over the next few months in preparation for what we will be working on for the fall semester.
What is planned for the fall semester? Lots!!! I will be using my Discovering PR book again for the course, and we will have several guest speakers coming in to the course to speak to students and share their expertise on PR and related topics.
It’s still early in the process on finalizing the overall focus for the course, but I think it is going to be a really great class. I will be sharing more about the importance of these brand partnerships in my keynote talk at this year’s ProfCon event!
In the meantime, I will be sharing some updates on what we will be doing in the classroom, and the teaching research and professional work I will also be doing with this project, so stay tuned!
Have a great day!
Best Wishes,
