Larry D. Lauer

Last week I met with a group of visiting educators on campus to help us review our graduate program in the Schieffer School of Journalism.  They ask me bluntly: What should be the “value added” benefit of a graduate program in journalism and strategic communication?

I confidently told them I thought that the “value added” of a professional school’s graduate program in these fields should be to help the students learn how to deal with the surprising and sometimes frightening workplace realities confronted by professional communicators in all organizations… all of those things we never get to cover adequately in lower level tactics and professional practice courses.

I also stressed that it is likely that these students will need to take more courses related to the topics they will be communicating. i.e. business, politics, international affairs, education, recent history, etc., and to become more exposed to how academic research in the various communication disciplines informs the practical world.  

But my list of the key “value-added” topics related to working in and with organizations includes to learn to think more critically, to manage complex issues, to make strategic plans that actually work in rapidly changing daily turmoil, to negotiate skillfully, to solve difficult problems, to lead innovative teams, to deal with corporate lawyers and management consultants, to manage and inspire creative people, to conduct really productive meetings, to make politically sensitive presentations, to deal with time-consuming and ever-present personnel problems, to make priority budget decisions in a competitive situation, and how to initiate research that actually  informs today’s critical decisions. But the most important topic of all is organizational politics–learning how to deal with the inevitable organizational barriers that can prevent you from doing what you now know how to do!!

Internal politics present problems everywhere.  The students may have actually learned something about politics in kindergarten and elementary school, but chances are they have forgotten all they knew!  And unless they were in that very rare undergraduate program, they didn’t get the refresher course.  So, a graduate program is a perfect place to address the specific workplace realities that communicators inevitably will confront head-on.

What do you do when your boss is actually threatened by your talent?  How do you get support from division heads who want to run their own show in every way?  How do you deal with the various leadership styles to be found from top to bottom in all organizations?  How do you get branding standards successfully  implemented?  Most importantly, how do you get widespread support for what you know how to do?  And the list goes on…

And one more point:  The line between journalism and strategic communication is blurring more and more every day.  Our graduates will work one day writing speeches in the White House and the next day in a news organization. They will use the same multi-platform communication tactics, and the best among them will strive to find and report truth no matter what side of the communication business they are on at the time. A properly shaped graduate program therefore is the perfect place to bridge the traditional divide between the disciplines and explore the full potential of a savvy, well-educated communication professional.