The Advocate In Me

Should Professionals be advocates?
The public relations member code of ethics states, Public relations professionals serve the public interest by serving as responsible advocates for those we represent.

In the fall of 2007, when I started my PR masters program I needed a job on campus. The easiest one I got was at the Kent State Dining Services. I’ve come to believe strongly that though my job at the dining services is a temporary one, I’ll be a responsible advocate as much as I can. It hasn’t been an easy journey. Why? An organization with a good reputation doesn’t need to do much to advertise itself.

But Kent State University like most educational institutions has its own problems. People ask me, so how is the food at the hub? Is it good? It’s always a difficult question for me personally. I am usually torn between being a good advocate for dining services and what I actually think of some of the food.

Have you ever asked yourself, am I a good advocate for the organization I work for? It’s a dilemma when you work with an organization which doesn’t represent your personal values but you just do so for the money.
You will even find yourself in a much deeper ethical dilemma if you’re a PR professional. Hopefully the PRSA code of ethics will serve as guidelines for all practitioners so that we don’t fail the organizations we work for.

Am I an advocate?
Absolutely, as PR professionals, we must always strive to be the conscience of our organizations. May be when you do an almost insignificant job like serving ice-cream at the Ambrosia, it may not seem like PR. But you do have a role to play in the reputation of Kent State.

I had the honor of being in Davis Young’s class in the fall of 2007. He’s the former president of Edward Howard public relations firm. Young emphasized in his book, Building Your Company’s Good Name, that a company’s future and the future of its employees are the responsibility of the employees themselves. So if Kent State’s reputation depends on employees like me, what is it doing to make me an advocate? As student employees at Kent State University, we have ethical responsibilities at our various units.