Pat Wheeler, a public relations professor from Morgan State University in Baltimore, visited BYU campus this past week to observe the Communications Department.
Wheeler has taught public relations and advertising at Morgan State for the past four years. She participated in an exchange program in which a communications professor from BYU recently visited Morgan State University.
Wheeler graduated from the University of Maryland in journalism. She went back to school to get an MBA from Colombia University after working in journalism for seven years.
She began to teach for the first time at Howard University as a professor for an intro to marketing class for two years. Wheeler said she wanted to start teaching to get a new experience and help others become more qualified for the professional world.
“I’ve pretty much done everything I wanted to do in my field: public relations, advertising, marketing and journalism. I didn’t want to manage other people anymore, just myself. With all the experience I’ve had, I decided I want to share it with students,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said she was not only impressed by how beautiful the BYU campus was but more so by how professional the advertising and public relations lab were run.
“Sitting in some classes, I saw how great and creative the students were. You don’t usually find that type of advertising coming out of students,” Wheeler said. “I was very impressed by the depth and range of the several international projects the students are working on.”
She was able to sit in several classes and give presentations to motivate students on how to build a more qualified and original portfolio in order to apply for jobs. She said the intro classes to communications majors were impressively advanced.
“I have a notebook full of ideas that I came across throughout my visit here that I plan to take back with me to Morgan,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler also said professors and students were very “warm and welcoming” towards her. She hopes that in the near future there are more opportunities to do exchange programs not only between professors but between students.
“I would love to come back someday, if they let me. It’s a wonderful program that is worth doing again,” Wheeler said.
