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When teaching public relations, colleges and universities have long followed a five-course standard that gives students a foundation in PR principles, writing, research, cases/campaigns, and internships. But to prepare young people for communications careers in the AI age, many public relations educators now advocate a six-course standard that includes a dedicated track in PR ethics.
Ethics is “needed to become a stand-alone point for PR education,” said Holly Cybulski, MA, APR, so students “develop these skills that become transferable across many facets of our profession.”
Cybulski is a PR practitioner and teaches communications at Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto. She is also a member of the Commission on Public Relations Education, which works to establish benchmarks for how colleges and universities teach public relations.
She and colleague Deborah Silverman, APR, Fellow PRSA, were guests on the Oct. 26 episode of Member Mondays, PRSA’s professional-development series hosted by 2026 Chair Heide Harrell, MA, APR.
The commission studies “how our PR education must evolve to prepare graduates to think strategically, use AI responsibly, navigate ethical complexities, drive meaningful social change and understand how to excel and thrive in an ever-evolving dynamic workforce,” Cybulski said.
The group also advocates experiential-learning opportunities. Students might analyze communications campaigns, for example, or spend time working in a PR office.
Public relations curricula that emphasize experiential learning are “moving away from traditional tests and quizzes” and “helping our students apply these models in a manner that mirrors our professional practice,” Cybulski said. “The goal is to bridge from education in the classroom to the boardroom.”
This year, the commission’s research committee is working on the role of artificial intelligence in the public relations workplace, said Silverman, who is chair and professor of communication at SUNY Buffalo State.
‘Sophisticated practitioners’
Along with learning to write, learning to think critically “is a foundational point” in public relations and in PR education, Cybulski said. “But how do we help [the student] evolve to become a more sophisticated practitioner, one that actually can inform their practice with an understanding of how to make decisions?”
Data literacy informs today’s practice of PR, Cybulski said. “We need to help students understand how to collect data ethically, using tools such as artificial intelligence, to critically analyze and responsibly inform strategies that generate insights.”
Such training helps students make deductions and draw conclusions, the critical thinking that communications professionals need in their work, she said.
“How are they critically thinking when they’re creating content, how are they using these tools effectively and ethically, and in this age, are they challenging the data that’s being presented to them to make sure they are creating quality content?” Cybulski said.
PR as ‘a social and cultural practice’
The Commission on Public Relations Education also wants communications students to learn about “inclusion and engagement,” Silverman said. The organization, which says part of its mission is to foster diversity, inclusion, equity, ethics, and global perspectives in PR education, calls public relations “a social and cultural practice that shapes societal discourse.”
The commission aims to prepare students “for their role in driving social change, requiring them to be courageous in addressing challenging societal issues.”
This fall, the commission’s inclusion and engagement committee “is collecting public relations syllabi that have evidence of inclusion and engagement in course-readings and assignments,” Silverman said. “We’re hoping to make these syllabi available to public relations educators around the world.”
The commission will soon conduct a follow-up study on inclusion and engagement in the PR classroom, Silverman said.
Photo credit: Lucky Business
