Built with love, the Ronald McDonald House of Durham offers a comforting “home away from home” and a community of support for seriously ill children and their families. I served as RMHD’s public relations intern from September 2014 to April 2015.

Responsibilities and projects:

• Created and aggregated guest family stories
  • Feature – Little Things Mean A Lot
  • Feature (excerpt for annual report) – Collin’s family
• Planned, created and pitched media documents to local journals, newspapers and news stations
  • News release – Sport Clips donates free haircuts for RMHD
• Planned and implemented daily Facebook content and three to five tweets per day
  • Facebook content calendar

Note: RMHD has its own style for certain content. Not all documents are written in AP Style. 

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction implements the state’s public school laws and State Board of Education’s governing policies and procedures governing pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade public education. Through the 2015 state government internship program, I was a full-time employee for a 10-week period (May 2015 to July 2015).

Responsibilities and projects:

• Aggregated and distributed daily news briefing for all DPI employees
• Rebranded Facebook presence and designed and implemented agency’s first social media strategy
• Created features and news documents for agency as well as speeches for state superintendent
  • Feature – A Community for Literacy: It Takes a Village
  • Letter of thanks – Supt. June Atkinson to student
  • News release – State Board of Education Approves Bus Safety Policy Revisions
  • Media advisories
  • Feature – Wilkes County Graduate Receives Scholarship
• Prepared and staffed State Superintendent June Atkinson on interviews and event appearances

Note: DPI has its own style for certain content. Not all documents are written in AP Style. 

The following are a selection of prominent UNC MJ-School courses that include large projects.

Public Relations Campaigns (MEJO 434) combines principles of research, theory and campaign design. Our team of five created a health campaign to influence awareness, attitudes and behaviors regarding e-cigarettes, a nicotine product that poses a number of health and behavior risks to 18-25 year old Americans and that is not yet regulated by the FDA or FCC. More project info forthcoming in summer 2016.

Leadership in a Time of Change (MEJO 552) is led by Professor Penny Abernathy and listed under both the digital media and business & entrepreneurship immersions available through a B.A. in Media and Journalism. Our team of three counducted secondary and qualitative research regarding benefits and limitations of paywalls for community newspapers in North Carolina. More information is available via Saving Community Journalism.

Advertising and Public Relations Research (MEJO 279) is led by Dr. Adam Saffer and explores quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Our team of five conducted research to explore how MJ-School students in the public relations sequence perceive and discuss their experiences. This study focused specifically on communications from and within the School as well as the presence and effects of social capital on student perceptions and learning outcomes. Study includes…

• SWOT analysis
• Content analysis
• Literature review
• Quantitative research report
• Qualitative report and final analysis

Interactive Media (MEJO 187) is led by adjunct Randall Elmo. The course on multimedia storytelling includes theory, design, content gathering, editing, programming (HTML and CSS), publishing and usability. Products from the course include…

• Branding guides
• Wireframes and color comps built through Adobe Illustrator
• Responsive design website built through original HTML and CSS code
• Responsive design magazine built through WordPress and manipulated via PHP, HTML and CSS code

Crash Campaign 2015 took place over a 24-hour period with multiple teams of students in the UNC School of Media and Journalism. The event featured four clients with marketing and advertising problems, and each client had three teams assigned to it. The assigned client for our team of five was Chapel Hill Training. In 24 hours, the team developed a creative strategy accompanied by a branding guide, mockup website and flyer, network and media list, social media guide and sample news release. The strategy and assets were then pitched to a panel of judges the following day. Our team won best strategy and pitch for its client category.