PR NOTABLES OF AMERICAN

MABEL PING-HUA LEE

Ph.D.

Setting High Education Standards

At the time of the 1973 founding of the Commission for Public Relations Education, the nation was in the midst of seismic social change. Corporate America faced new demands for social responsibility, including concerns about the environment, worker safety, food safety and consumer protection.

To address the need for a strategic approach to public relations, a group of PR educators and practitioners came together to define standards for higher education in the maturing field.

1896–1966

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was a ChineseAmerican women’s rights activist and minister who campaigned for women’s suffrage in the United States. Ping-Hua Lee received a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Barnard College of Columbia University, and later a doctorate in economics from Columbia University in 1921, becoming the first Chinese woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in economics. She became a Baptist minister in 1924, and went on to run New York City’s First Chinese Baptist Church for 40 years, while also becoming a leader within the American Baptist Home Mission Society. (Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

H. Frazier Moore created the Commission for Public Relations Education (CPRE) in 1973 while on the faculty at the University of Georgia. CRPE’s goal was to set and define academic standards at a time when the profession and the country were going through many changes. (Courtesy of the Peabody Awards)

H. Frazier Moore, a PR professor at the University of Georgia and then-president of the PR Division of the Association for Education in Journalism, created the Commission in 1973. PRSA quickly became a joint sponsor with the support of then-PRSA President Betsy Plank, who served on the Commission at its inception and championed its work for decades.

J. Carroll Bateman, APR, a legendary PR professional, and Scott Cutlip, APR, Fellow PRSA, a pioneer of PR education, identified an essential problem in a seminal 1975 Commission report: the PR field was populated by too many self-taught, old-style publicists.

“The need for qualified, competent, professional assistance in this field was never greater than it is today,” they wrote.

The report outlined a PR curriculum for undergrad and master’s students, described the “ideal faculty” as a blend of educators and practitioners and urged a greater commitment to PR research. The Commission took on that charge, and over the years further defined the essential elements of a quality PR education.

Almost five decades after the founding of the Commission, the “Creed for Public Relations” espoused by Bateman continues to ring true: “I believe that sound public relations comprises policies and deeds as well as words; that it should deal in truth rather than deception; and that it should seek to clarify the issues of our times rather than to confuse them.”