J840 Seminar Course Descriptions

Communicating Sustainability Initiatives 
 “Communication about the environment [and sustainability] matter. . .in the naming of the conditions that we take to be problems, but it also matters in the ways we interact with our communities, our workplaces, and the natural world.” Robert Cox

Sustainability is now a critical part of many nonprofit and corporate communications strategies. Public, governmental, and corporate discourses often focus on sustainability and green marketing. This focus spurs various company stakeholders (including customers and investors) to dialog about company practices. The critical questions are, “What is sustainability?”, “How do companies define ‘sustainability’ in ways that reflect their mission and vision,” and “What defines authentic and effective sustainability communication?”

Sustainability touches every aspect of our lives and is generally defined as an integrated focus on economic growth, social equity, and resource conservation. This servicelearning course will provide tools for effective communications about social, environmental and sustainability issues. We will study various styles of environmental and social communications, analyze the ways sustainability is currently defined and used by businesses, governments and nonprofits, and develop education and outreach on sustainable business for the Sustainability Trailblazers initiative and Lawrence Journal-World sustainability blog.

Crisis Communications & Image Management
Recent events – local and global, natural and human-initiated – show us that surviving a crisis involves anticipation, planning and, above all, effective communication. This hybrid (online and on-site) summer seminar will help you in understanding that CRISIS is a process, not an event and awareness of effective strategies you can use to foresee, prepare for, and manage crises that will arise in the professional and personal dimensions of your life. Crisis preparation and crisis management are always best accomplished through sound communication practices.

Marketing Communications for Non-Profit Organizations
Journalism 840 is an introduction to current practices for marketing nonprofit organizations. Through a combination of lectures, guest speakers and readings, students will explore a variety of techniques non-profit marketers use to brand their organizations, cultivate donor relations, raise funds and further their causes. Students will have the opportunity to apply those learnings as they complete a communication audit and craft a marketing plan for a nonprofit organization of their choice.

Media Relations
Like quicksand under your feet, the landscape of today’s media is in a state of constant change. Just when you think you have your footing, some new technology or study about media consumption changes everything you thought you knew about newspapers, television news or reporting.  If you’re on the other side of the table–practicing public or media relations–how do you make sense of it all so you get the coverage you need for your company, product or non-profit organization? This course seeks to answer that question by exploring the current state of the media, the technology and business pressures influencing it, and what you can do the form the relationships you need to work most efficiently with today’s reporters, assignment editors, bloggers and others.