Skip to main content
St. Vincent Homepage

Public Relations

  • Minor

A public relations minor pairs well with many majors because the skills involved, such as strategic communication, writing, branding, messaging, and audience engagement, are valuable across industries. Consider a public relations minor to complement your major in:

The public relations minor is housed in the Department of Communications, a community that embraces and celebrates human diversity, and that is reflected in the department's culture and curriculum.

Undergraduate Programs

Program Highlights

The public relations minor provides opportunities to:
  • Learn the building blocks of media writing and practice those skills through assignments based on real-world writing tasks such as social media or web copy, news scripts, and advertising
  • Build your professional portfolio by creating a public media kit
  • Plan and execute a special event along with a public relations campaign to promote it
  • Prepare a mock marketing campaign that includes client analysis, brand awareness, media choice, and creative suggestions
  • Develop an outcomes-focused social media strategy
  • Explore discourse and dialogue as actions with ethical implications

Curriculum Requirements

  • Minor: Required Courses

    Required courses (9 credits)
    • CA 230 Writing for Media
    • CA 240 Public Relations Strategies
    • CA 355 Advanced Public Relations


    Plus, choose 3 courses from the following:

    • CA 110 Introduction to Organizational Communication
    • CA 120 Public Speaking
    • CA 201 Research Methods
    • CA 218 Intercultural Communication
    • CA 291 Facts, Persuasion, and Argument
    • CA 302 Collegiate Athletic Communication
    • CA 303 Communication Ethics
    • CA 304 Social Media Strategies
    • CA 307 Media Literacy
    • CA 340 Nonprofit Communication
    • CA 415 Creative Campaigns
    • DA 120 Digital Layout & Design
    • BA 220 Principles of Marketing
    • EL 108 Technical Writing
    • Modern Languages 203 and/or 204 course

  • Key Courses

    Communication Ethics: 

    In this course, you’ll explore why words matter, not just what we say, but how we say it, the medium we use, and the situation we’re in. Through readings on a variety of topics like political communication, religious communication, and healthcare communication, you’ll examine how conversations and messages shape our world. You’ll also look at how everyday dialogue carries ethical responsibilities and impacts the people around us.

    Writing for Media: 

    This course introduces you to a wide range of media writing. You will learn the essential building blocks of strong writing for media, including understanding your audience, planning your message, revising and editing your work, crafting headlines, choosing effective keywords, and using the appropriate style. 

    Introduction to Organizational Communication: 

    This course introduces you to major theories about how communication works within different types of organizations. You will explore how people communicate through leadership, conflict, decision-making, and across ethnic, cultural, and gender differences. You will also study historical approaches to organizational structure and management from the industrial revolution to postmodern models, gaining a deeper understanding of how organizations have changed over time.

Undergraduate Programs
Back to Top