OC PRSSA awarded 2019 PRSA-OKC scholarship 

Scholarship helped fund a speaker and public event highlighting the positive use of social media

November 1, 2019 - OC’s Public Relations Student Society of America chapter was recently awarded a $500 scholarship by the Oklahoma City Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. 

The Oklahoma City PRSA chapter gives this scholarship to a chapter in good standing that needs funds for events or activities beyond what the chapter currently has. The event needs to increase the overall strength of the chapter and be of benefit to the public relations community. OC’s chapter was chosen out of the Oklahoma chapters based on their meetings and events they hold during the year; one large event open to the public was especially noteworthy. 

“We are incredibly honored to be chosen as the recipients of this year’s chapter scholarship from PRSA-OKC,” said OC PRSSA’s advisor, Josh Watson, an associate professor of communication at OC. “Our university has a rich heritage of PRSA-OKC members and officers, and we want to extend that reputation with our current students. We also wanted to make sure we produced an event that highlighted the good that PR pros do, and this scholarship helped us do just that.”

The scholarship benefited OC PRSSA’s Social Media for Good event with author and social media expert Chris Strub in October. Strub is the author of the book “50 States, 100 days,” which is about his journey to work with a nonprofit in every state over a 100-day period and document it. Strub is now traveling to each state to show the documentary version of his journey. OC’s event was the Oklahoma debut of the documentary.

OC PRSSA invited high school students in the surrounding area to join them for the event. Sturb highlighted nonprofit organizations and the work they are doing by using Snapchat, Facebook Live, and Meerkat. His Oklahoma stop on during his 100-day project included a visit to Sunbeam Family Services in Oklahoma City. Strub interacted with Erin Engelke there; she is the President-elect of PRSA-OKC and public relations alumna of OC. Engelke now serves as the executive director of Calm Waters Center for Children and Families in Oklahoma City.