As of the 2013-14 school year, a new public relations major has been added to the curriculum at Iowa State in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

This area of study is expected to be in high demand in the work force in the next several years.

“Public relations is one of the fastest growing fields in the country,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. “It’s not only the fastest growing in communication, but fields in general. It is expected to expand 23 percent between 2012 and 2020.”

The addition of this new major has been brewing for years now. Suman Lee, associate professor of journalism and communication, was chairman of the committee that proposed the separate major for public relations.

“I have been a chair of the public relations ad hoc committee which was formed almost two years ago,” Lee said. “We formed a committee with the consent of the faculty and the leaders and administrators, and then … we submitted the proposal almost a year ago, starting the approval process.”

Iowa State’s addition of this new major is behind the national trend, Lee said. The stand-alone program was needed.

“What I see is that the public relations program has grown here at the Greenlee School for many decades,” Lee said. “So this new PR degree is giving the school the right fit for the growing body.”

The Greenlee School was well prepared for the new major, said Beate Schmittmann, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“The Greenlee School faculty and the director came to me and proposed to develop a stand alone degree, since we already had most of the courses and internships in place that didn’t require any additional resources but would serve the students and exhibit the credentials a lot more clearly,” Schmittmann said. “We felt we could support the students in a very simple and direct fashion.”

Bugeja said public relations as a stand-alone program was needed to meet the high demands of the job of a public relations practitioner.

“They organize a whole company’s brand and work with advertisers and marketers,” he said. “They have to have all the journalism skills. They have to know how to communicate through every single platform.

“You can continue to talk about public relations in this ever widening umbrella so no one or two courses will ever suffice for true public relations. … We wanted our students to take all of our courses in PR in order to get a degree that prepares them for internships and success in the field.”

Students in the Greenlee School have already been taking numerous internships in public relations, so the new program will put them even farther ahead, said Kim McDonough, program and internship coordinator for the Greenlee School.

“Some will decide to go to public relation firms, like Weber Shandwick or Edleman corporations,” McDonough said. “We have other students who decide to work in house for specific companies and do marketing and communications activities for them. We have students who decided to go into government and public information as well.”

Other students and faculty have expressed excitement about the addition of the public relations major.

“I think it will help students gain the upper hand against their competition once they get into the job market,” said Zach Bauer, junior now double majoring in political science and public relations.

Schmittmann speaks for the college of liberal arts as a whole.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for students to work in a very hot, very promising field,” she said. “They’re going to get an outstanding education here.”