Evaluating a Professional Advertising/PR Curriculum: Aligning the Liberal Arts Curriculum with Professional Expectations

An Analysis of Career Aspirations of 1,200 U.S. Advertising Students

“…In stark contrast to the AAAA report, in May 2004, Linda Sawyer of Deutsch Advertising wrote an article for Advertising Age criticizing advertising educators for degrading the advertising profession and thus "attracting the wrong kind of students" to the business. Ganahl (2003) conducted focus groups with professionals who said that degrees in advertising were interchangeable with other types of degrees and that graduates needed more business courses rather than a broad liberal arts education to be successful in industry. Lloyd, Slater and Robbs (2000) found that agency media planners want students to have both theoretical and computational skills.…”

Bridging the Gap in IMC Education: Where is the Academy Falling Short?

“…This last component might also satisfy students interested in using the student group for social and professional networking. Indeed, in-market professionals cited extra-curricular activities as key in their professional preparation (Ganahl, 2003).…”

Adding Bilateral Transparency to Assessing Student Learning in the Advertising Capstone Course

“…Pollio and Beck (2000) found that "students wished professors were less grade-oriented, while professors wished students were more learning-oriented" (p. 45) In fact, students often "confuse grades with learning and do not view grades as a snapshot" (Giese, 2005, p. 255). While professors appear to believe that grades in advertising and quality of a student's course work, they also think that grades are not necessarily an adequate predictor of a student's potential as employee (Ganahl, 2003). Cohen (2004) states, that while grades are an important tool for summative evaluations such as papers and exams, they are not considered to be a valid indicator of the process of learning that occurs in a course (Cohen, 2004).…”