University PAOs have to be ready for anything.

Faced with problems such as rising tuition, sports scandals, racial tension, sexual harassment, campus crime and drug and alcohol abuse, public affairs officers for colleges and universities face an array of challenges -- sometimes overlapping and conflicting -- in their roles as publicists, media liaison, crisis communicators, internal counselors, publications managers and image-builders.

According to a recent survey of high-ranking communication administrators at a variety of U.S. schools -- large and small, private and public, metropolitan and rural -- public affairs professionals spend an average of 15.4 percent of their time working on "general publicity," 13.4 percent on media relations in crisis communication and 12.6 percent counseling the school president and other administrators on policies.

Ten other job duties were listed on the survey (see chart on next page), and many respondents offered other duties under the category of "other." At small schools with limited athletic department staffs, the typical public affairs officer either supervised or assisted sports information activities. Three respondents reported spending time developing or maintaining their schools' World Wide Web sites. Other activities mentioned included issues management, research, strategic planning, video production, speech writing, photography, budgeting, administration, personnel and "sitting in a lot of meetings."

When asked to describe their jobs according to PR researchers James Grunig's and Todd Hunt's four models* of public relations practice, 30.6 percent chose "public information," 25.6 percent "press agentry/publicity," 21.9 percent "two-way asymmetric" and 21.9 percent "two-way symmetric." Nearly all of the respondents reported using "conventional and accepted" public relations techniques in the execution of their jobs and nearly all claimed to have encountered no ethical dilemmas.

Here are some of the other highlights of the survey results:

* Like all public relations settings, having adequate financial and staff resources is necessary to be effective. Survey respondents were approximately evenly divided when asked whether or not they had the financial and staffing resources necessary to do their jobs well. But surprisingly, whether a school was public or private had little bearing on the respondents' answer. Many successful public affairs officers have found creative ways to maximize resources: by hiring work-study students and interns, using consultants and freelancers, establishing advisory boards of alumni and friends and recruiting volunteers.

* Survey respondents ranked crisis communication high -- but rarely first -- on a list of their job functions. Respondents reported spending an average of only 5.4 percent of their time working on crisis communication, but many said that sometimes escalates to 100 percent at the height of a major crisis. Some examples: the California State University's (Northridge) handling of news when the campus was at the epicenter of a January 1994 earthquake; the University of Florida's public affairs staff's work during the five-day period in 1990 when the campus was paralyzed by a serial killer; racial unrest caused by insensitive comments made by Rutgers University President Francis Lawrence in November 1994; a 1993 incident at the University of Virginia in which a campus construction project unearthed burial sites of Civil War-era slaves; and a protested appearance by controversial Nation of Islam spokesperson Khalid Mohammed in the spring 1995 at Howard University, for which the school consulted outside public relations counsel.

* Because of the emphasis on media relations in general and crisis communication specifically, many universities look for journalism backgrounds for incoming public affairs applicants. Many of the survey respondents (39.5 percent) had journalism backgrounds; others had come from public relations specializations other than higher education (31.6 percent) or administrative areas in higher education other than public affairs (20.3 percent).

* Fewer than one-third of the respondents reported holding memberships in either IABC or the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and only a quarter reported memberships in local or regional press clubs or similar professional groups. However, more than half reported holding memberships in education-related organizations such as the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) or the College News Association.

Secondary research conducted before administration of the survey revealed the following trends:

* Many public affairs officers are teaming up with other administrative departments to help in recruiting efforts. Nearly every university has a number-crunching department called "institutional research" that tracks enrollment trends and researches why students pick one school over another.

* Some universities are turning over the research and recruitment function to public relations agencies. At least six major agencies claim to specialize in such work, including a New York-based firm, College Connections, which specializes in public relations for small colleges. Its services include public relations audits, placement of newspaper and magazine articles, graphic identity programs, media tours and news conference/special event planning. Small colleges are especially in need of consulting services because of their unique problems: lack of name recognition, lack of "hot news" to report (unless it's bad) and the fact that its sports teams rarely appear on television.

* The integrity of some public affairs officers has been called into question over the reporting of misleading information to national publications compiling rankings of universities. In early 1995, several schools were charged with discrepencies in areas such as graduation rates and average SAT scores of entering freshmen. Most were eventually resolved and blamed either on poorly worded surveys that resulted in "comparing apples to oranges" or poor internal communication (as one university spokesperson explained, "one office not communicating with another").

* Recruiting students is a major emphasis of an institution's public relations function. Higher education is a buyer's market, and schools compete aggressively not just for students, but also for good students. Demographers tell us the 18-year-old population peaked around 1980 and has been declining ever since because of birth control technology and the trend toward childless or one-child families. Survey respondents listed recruiting and image-building high on their list of job functions.

* Madison Avenue-like vocabulary has crept into the business of recruiting and image-building. Universities frequently use terms such as "market research" and "positioning studies" to describe their fact-finding efforts. Survey respondents said nearly unanimously that they use "conventional" public relations methods to execute their job functions.

* Just as the personality of a company's CEO affects how its public relations staff executes its function, the personality of a university president affects the performance of the university's communication staff. On one extreme are the media-savvy presidents; on the other, those who refuse to recognize and act on public relations problems and opportunities.

Previous Professional Background

Journalism 39.5% Positions in public affairs, other than higher education 31.6% Positions in higher education other than public affairs 20.3%

Other 8.6%

Job Description Based on

Grunig and Hunt Models(*)

Public information 30.6% Press agent/publicity 25.6% Two-way asymmetric 21.9% Two-way symmetric 21.9%

(*) James E. Grunig, Ph.D. and Todd Hunt describe the "press agentry/publicity" model as the publicizing of events and services; "public information" as the dissemination of information, not necessarily with a persuasive intent; "two-way asymmetric" as scientific persuasion with imbalanced effects; and "two-way symmetric" as seeking mutual understanding.

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South Africa PAOs Face New Needs

Nearly all public relations professionals deal with a variety of publics, but that is especially true in the case of Chris Mitchell, director of the department of development and public affairs at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He says he deals with economic and cultural diversity every day on the job -- not because of his employer, but because of its location.

"South Africa is undergoing a process of change and transformation Mitchell explains. The general state of education in South Africa means there are more demands placed on universities, yet there are fewer resources with which to meet those demands."

Mitchell says the sociological makeup of the country affects not only his job, but also public relations and higher education in general. "Public relations differs (here) because of the huge disparities, cultural differences and differences in expectations between the constituencies we are trying to reach" he said.

Looking at the Grunig and Hunt models* for public relations practice, Mitchell says he identifies most with "public information" -- the same answer given by more than 30 percent of the U.S. survey respondents.

In terms of job functions, Mitchell says he spends most of his time in three areas -- media relations, image-building and because his department encompasses the development function -- fundraising.

UCT's department of development and public affairs includes sections dealing with alumni affairs, media services, fund raising, visitors' programmes, special functions and government liaison.