The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication has officially announced that they will be offering a public relations degree available for undergraduates.

For more than 40 years, the Greenlee School has been preparing public relations professionals through coursework and internships, but has not offered any sort of public relations major or minor.

“There’s a demand for this knowledge in society,” said Suman Lee, professor of journalism and mass communication and author of the “Public Relations Proposal.”

The school has decided to offer a public relations degree due to the increasingly high demand for public relations professionals in the national workforce.

According to Iowa Workforce Development, in 2012 the employment growth for public relations specialists in the state is expected to increase about 21 percent between 2008 [2,217 jobs] and 2018 [2,676 jobs].

With the entrance of the public relations major, Iowa State will be able to provide students interested in public relations the opportunity to obtain a separate degree in public relations instead of a major in journalism and mass communication.

Students in the Greenlee School are already actively involved in public relations coursework even though the school does not offer a public relations degree.

Since 1996, an average of 140 students actively take core classes in public relations on an annual basis. These figures contribute to about 32 percent of the total number of undergraduate majors at the Greenlee School, reported in the Iowa State University Public Relations Degree Proposal.

The proposal also stated that the public relations program will focus on the theories and methods for building relationships between an organization or entity and the general public.

The major will prepare students to function as managers and technicians working for corporations, not-for-profit organizations and the government.

The profession of public relations is a doorway for students who are interested in a very diverse field of work, a public relations professional is not just limited to a desk.

“The public relations profession is very universal; you can apply it to healthcare, engineering and business,” said Erin Wilgenbusch, senior lecturer and Public Relations Student Society of America faculty advisor.

To prepare for these positions, students can enroll in coursework similar to that of the journalism major.

These courses will focus on developing skills that will allow them to become public relations practitioners skilled in public relations theory, strategy, practice and ethics.

Public relations courses, which are similar to the journalism courses, will be taught primarily in the Greenlee School’s classrooms.

The school has 29 faculty members that have already been teaching public relations courses, so there is no need to hire more instructors. The coursework instructors will not change, as they have already been teaching the classes already.

“We have many faculty that have expertise in the area of public relations,” said Wilgenbusch.

Students interested in the public relations major will be able to switch or pick up a double-major Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the next PRSSA meeting.