The Ball State Public Relations Student Society of America mentoring program : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)

The Ball State Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) is a student-run organization dedicated to educating its members about the field of public relations. One phenomenon in this field, as in any professional field, is the presence of mentoring relationships in the work force. Young public relations professionals just entering the workforce find numerous benefits to being proteges in mentoring relationships with experienced public relations professionals. In order to encourage students in Ball State's PRSSA chapter to seek out these relationships in the work force, I created a mentoring program that pairs older PRSSA members with younger PRSSA members. Much as in the work force and as scholarly research too suggested, the PRSSA proteges experienced higher rates of success, flattened learning curves more quickly, benefited from their mentors' networks, and learned the particulars about the public relations major. The PRSSA mentors received the opportunity to learn and practice leadership skills, experienced personal growth, and became more valuable members to the organization compared with non-mentor members. Mentors showed they were committed to the quality and future of their organization. The following paper chronicles my research, how and why I created the PRSSA mentoring program, and my journey through its first year.Honors CollegeThesis (B.?.