October 2019
STAN RICHARDS
SCHOOL OF ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY A subsidary of Communication Council’s Moody Magazine
FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
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By: Matthew Brunicardi, graduate student
ark your calendars! Wednesday, October 30th will mark the five-year anniversary of the namesake of Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations being established. Five years ago, Stan Richards partnered with The University of Texas at Austin to create a high-caliber advertising and public relations school for undergraduate and graduate students. Today, the Stan Richards School is ranked #1 in the United States and has grown to serve nearly 1,500 students. The program was initially created to bridge the gap between advertising academics and industry. Specifically, Stan Richards wanted to establish an educational experience that critically prepares students for a wide array of positions within the industry. Over the past five years, Stan Richards’ generous contribution has been essential to support and grow the Texas Creative degree sequence, the Texas Media & Analytics sequence, and the Stan Richards Professorship. These initiatives have continued to better develop and prepare students for careers in industry, essentially making them more ‘career ready’ than peer institutions, and as such our students have exciting and highly creative early-career employment opportunities, such as brand or account management, digital analytics, social media management, art direction, copywriting, media planning, communication management and social media management. Five years later, Richards is set to revisit Austin to commemorate the anniversary of the school naming. In addition, he is set to make a big announcement to all students, faculty, and staff in the Belo Center for New Media,
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in the 4th floor lobby, from 1:30-2:00 PM. The announcement will be made by Richards himself along with key staff, and is anticipated to reveal an exciting chapter in the evolution of the school. The reception will be open to the public and will provide snacks, drinks, and giveaways provided by Moody College. All students and faculty are encouraged to attend as the announcement is one you will not want to miss. For more information, please check the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations website for official announcements.
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ADVERTISING & PR STUDENTS “I’m in media planning with Dobias and honestly I’m not doing the best but I feel like I’ve learned the most from her. She’s done a lot in terms of PR specifically by teaching us things like media planning and advertising. I feel like she’s introducing me to a lot of things within media planning. For one, I feel like nothing else interests me and also I’m a good communicator. Im interested in the way people communicate with each other within media and I think thats all encompassed within PR.”
- Paul Flores, PR junior
“Lisa Dobias, handsdown, has been the biggest influence on me, not just since Moody, but in my entire life. I would not be where I am-which is to say, I wouldn’t be in such a great place-- if it weren’t for her. For those that don’t know her, she’s a professor at SRS and director of Texas Media + Analytics. She’s also the TAG sponsor, student advocate, her own LinkedIn network, a mom, and anything else you need her to be. She’s truly a superhero and I love her. I actually started out in journalism, but I didn’t like that I couldn’t be passionate about something and advocate for the subject at hand. In advertising, I can do that. It’s all about persuasion and advocacy. It’s the same reason I wasn’t a good volleyball referee-- I hate being a bird’s eye. I want to be in the fight.”
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“I took the AMES test which measures what your aptitudes are for and the only thing I actually had an aptitude for was creativity so they recommended me to go into a program where I can build my own career and make all of my own choices. So I came into UT for the advertising creative program. I feel like advertising is a lot like law school. You just gain a way of thinking and less of a skillset so I just need to gain a creative way to formulate ad campaigns and think about brands in a new way. Stan Richards actually came to my class last semester and he talked to us a little bit about how he started and what his most influential campaigns have been. He talked about what he found satisfaction from in the business and I think that tying ourselves to someone that has been so successful in Texas starting his own agency could only be beneficial to UT students. And its beneficial for him because he gets to hire directly from UT so its a mutually beneficial partnership.” - Madelyn Thomas, Advertising sophomore
- Hannah Janssen, Advertising senior 3
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ADVERTISING & PR STUDENTS “I started off in the College of Natural Sciences and found out about Texas Creative through a friend in Moody. After hearing about this opportunity that was so specific to what I wanted to do, I made the switch as soon as possible. If it weren’t for my friend I may have switched into some-
“I was watching a lot of Scandal, and really liked Olivia Pope. I didn’t realize what she was doing was communications and crisis management which is the basis of PR. I wanted to be Olivia Pope when I grew up. I chose PR as my major because I was really invested in social media and seeing how it worked, they way influencers rose to the top, how they worked with brands, and how sponsorships happened. I wanted to see the back ends of that. I took a playwriting class in high school and I really liked the writing aspect of it. I was trying to find a way to merge my interests. I took a career quiz in high school and one of the top choices was PR and advertising. PR felt personal and you got to do media relations and form a relationship with journalists. I’ve already gained a community here at the Stan Richards school which is amazing. A lot of my best friends are Moody students and even more so they’re advertising and PR majors. I really like that I have people to go to. I myself am a resource but the school and the people involved are resources to me. We help each other out and collaboratespecifically in the organizations I’m a part of Orange Magazine and Spark Magazine. I found a creative outlet where I can use the skills I’ve learned at the Stan Richards School.”
- Cruz Rendon, PR senior
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thing in the School of Fine Arts. I’m very grateful for the Texas Creative program, as it is a very specific branch into exactly what I want to do. A lot of other majors are super broad but I feel as if this sequence gives me an accurate, immersive taste of the industry in my undergraduate years, which is rare.”
- June Chen, Advertising junior “Moody was the singular reason I left my home state of California and came South. I don’t think there is another Communications college in the country that is so well developed. I knew there would be a plethora of opportunities for me if I came to Moody, and I knew that the resources the University and the greater Austin area could provide would help too to get the best degree possible. None of the material I have learned throughout my Advertising, Communications, and RTF classes is one-dimensional; each teacher encourages me to think beyond the subject area and apply myself to different fields.”
- Eva Tirion, Advertising sophomore 6
Thank you, Stan Richards!
Your support and donation to UT has not only pushed the Advertising program to be #1 in the nation but has also provided an enriching program for students to gain experience and enhance their skills. You are an incredible leader, and that is reflected throughout the Stan Richards School for Advertising and Public Relations. You have truly made a significant impact in Moody and will continue to do so for the future classes at a UT. Thank you.
Sincerely, Communication Council
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