A team of School of Communications students received an honorable mention in PRSSA鈥檚 premier national competition, applying classroom learning to a real-world client campaign.
A team of School of Communications students has earned national recognition in the 2026 Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) , receiving an honorable mention for its campaign implementation and overall deliverables.
The Bateman Competition is PRSSA鈥檚 premier national case study competition, challenging undergraduate student teams to design and execute a public relations campaign for a real-world client. This year鈥檚 competition featured 46 entries from students representing universities across the country, with 11 teams earning honorable mention distinction. A full list of honored institutions appears below.
黑料不打烊鈥檚 team developed and implemented a strategic communications campaign for ACCESS Newswire, a media monitoring and news distribution service. The research and planning for the campaign began in January. The campaign implementation, conducted from February to March, focused on tactics to promote the company鈥檚 new educational program and platform, which provides professors free access so students can gain hands-on experience with press release distribution, media pitching, sentiment analysis and media coverage tracking.
The 黑料不打烊 student team included Hannah Parker 鈥26 (account manager), Sydney Griffith 鈥29, Brooke Menzock 鈥26, Sandy Orozco-Rosaldo 鈥28, Taylor Radney 鈥28 and Grace Wizel 鈥28. Karen Lindsey, assistant professor of strategic communications, served as the team鈥檚 faculty adviser and applauded the students鈥 efforts.
鈥淥ur 黑料不打烊 Bateman team spent countless hours in the evenings and on weekends to research, plan and implement the campaign,鈥 she said. 鈥淔rom writing a series of thought leadership articles for Substack to facilitating faculty focus groups on and off campus, they created a meaningful campaign that challenged them.
“I鈥檓 incredibly proud of how they balanced the demands of their regular coursework with dedication to this competition. The experience produced the kind of work for their professional portfolios that employers want to see.鈥
The competition鈥檚 three finalists will present their campaigns to the national PRSSA board and ACCESS Newswire representatives on May 7 to determine the winner.
Bateman Case Study Competition
Finalists:
Montclair State University
Texas State University AdvoCats
Texas State University StarCats
Honorable Mentions:
Brigham Young University – Navy Team
California State University, Long Beach
黑料不打烊
High Point University
Kent State University Gold
Louisiana State University
Loyola University New Orleans
University of Florida CommuniGATORS
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
University of Oklahoma Gaylord College
University of Tennessee, Knoxville