The current Public Relations course, taught by Marathana Prothro, is working with Crime Victim Services in Allen and Putnam counties, as the main focus of the course. Crime Victim Services is a non-profit organization that aims to help victims of crimes find justice, healing, safety and financial recovery when needed, as well as work to prevent crime from happening within communities.
Crime Victim Services is an organization based in 10 parts: court advocacy, rape crisis, domestic violence, elder victim ministry, special victims unit, court appointed special advocates, human trafficking, violence prevention, child advocacy center, and guardian program. Each part of the organization has its own staff and core focus, though the overall mission of all the sections stays the same, to help people. The organization brings its knowledge to the public through sessions at various schools and communities, talking about things like creating a culture of consent and oppression within communities and workplaces.
Each of the divided sections within the organization have their own logos and branding, a way to classify them and tell them apart. Though, Ryn Farmer, administration and Day One director, hopes that with the help of the public relations students, the organization can integrate the different sections in various ways to be more identifiable as a whole.
“[Public relations tools] is all outside of my area of expertise,” Farmer said. “So, having the opportunity to work with Marathana and with her class has been wonderful, because that is their expertise.”
Administration and Day One Director of Crime Victim Services Ryn Farmer.
Farmer works on the financial side of the organization, including the emergency financial services for crime victims that may have lost their job due to the situation, or do not feel safe where they live and cannot afford to move to a new location. Another side of Farmer’s job includes the testimony and advocacy of policies, as well as supervising and making sure that all the employees have the proper tools and information needed to help those that come to the organization.
The course itself is a communication class set up with hands-on group work—or as much as possible during a pandemic. Students work in partners and analyze Crime Victim Services’ social presence and branding, making notes and coming up with ways to improve the organization’s external communication. The class has Zoom meetings with two members of the organization to discuss the students’ findings and ways of improvement, as well as getting to ask questions about the organization itself.
Elizabeth Rockwell, sophomore business and communication major, is a student participating in the Public Relations course this semester. Rockwell said she seems to be more at ease and successful in classes that are more hands on like this course. She enjoys being able to work with a partner on assignments and bounce ideas off each other. The pacing of the class as she described is very much determined by the student/partner group, which makes it easier to juggle assignments and truly give full focus to the organization all while working an off-campus job and a full course load.
“A lot more partner work, even during [COVID-19], it’s just nice,” Rockwell said. “We are able to do our work at our own pace.”
