UA-R-GC-1914-01-01-1983-11_Page-045

.. - MINUTES PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE November 9, 1983 Present: Mr. Devine, Mr. Winder, Mr. Hayes, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Lamont, Dr. Pedersen, Mrs. Thorne, Ms. Morse, Mrs. Yost Chaired by Mr. Devine Minutes by Mrs. Yost Mr. Devine chaired the meeting in the absence of Mr. MacDonald. The committee approved the minutes of the last meeting. The committee was informed by Mr. Hayes that Dr. Pedersen was going to have a screen test at Mobil on Monday, November 14, to see if he "works" on television. If Dr. Pedersen screen tests well, Mobil will put him through a course to prepare him for appearances on TV. Mr. Devine reported that he had talked to Winston Lord about Dr. Pedersen participating in a panel at the Foreign Policy Association. The committee agreed that Dr. Pedersen's participation in such forums is a good idea. The committee discussed the anti-AUC articles that have appeared recently in Cairo. Mr. Bates reported that one weekly paper has carried such articles, (copies of the articles were distributed to the committee) but that it is an· "opposition newspaper" which has a small circulation. Mr. Bates said that Dr. Pedersen is not overly concerned about these articles. When Dr. Pedersen joined the committee meeting a bit later he added that these attacks on AUC were from an anti-Mubarak paper and AUC wa~ being attacked because of Mubarak's close ties with the university. He downplayed the significance of the attacks for AUC. Mr. Devine raised the question of how the committee can get a press release out on the AUC Board Meetings--that the committee needs to come up with a newsworthy angle the papers would pick up. Mr. Hayes discussed the idea of a 3 or 6 minute news clip on the university with Dr. Pedersen speaking about AUC. The committee was enthusiastic about this idea and wanted to pursue Mr. Hayes generous offer of having Mobil produce a clip for the university. Mr. Robert Bruce in Corporate Public Relations at Mobil is willing to put this together for AUC. The clip would . be distributed to independent TV stations around the country. The subject would be: "What is AUC all about?" The clip would include color photographs of the university with Dr. Pedersen narrating. The implicit message that the viewers would be left with might be that AUC is a stabilizing influence in the Middle East