Baylor University is pleased to announce the recent launch of its online Master of Arts in Journalism with a concentration in public relations and advertising. This program will equip graduates with leadership, research and creative skills that are mandatory to succeed in the fields of advertising and public relations. The coursework is designed to meet the job demands and needs of communication professionals who aspire to rise to management roles in advertising and public relations.

Beginning in Fall 2021, Professor Robert Darden resumed a collaboration Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. that began with the PBS documentary special, “The Black Church,” which aired in Fall 2020. Darden was interviewed multiple times in “The Black Church” about the intersection of Black sacred music and the Black church. The series also used digitized music and excerpt of sermons from Baylor’s Black Gospel Music Restoration Project (BGMRP), which Darden founded in 2016.

“The department as a whole had an outlook of service and preparing students for careers that would benefit society.
This instilled a desire to be involved in my community,” said Pablo Gonzales, a 2018 alumnus of Baylor University’s Journalism, Public Relations, and New Media Department.

Gonzales shared how Baylor’s undergraduate program prepared him for the position he is in now: a Fulbright Scholar serving in Mexico City, Mexico.

"Organizational change is necessary for entities to succeed," said Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D., the 2021 recipient of The Cornelia Marschall Smith Award, during her keynote speech titled "Organizational Change in an Age of Covid-19 and Social Unrest."

The speech was given in February by Dr. Moody-Ramirez, who is professor and chair of the Baylor University Department of Journalism, Public Relations & New Media.

As a final requirement before graduation, Hannah Smith, a Baylor graduate student, completed a defense for her master’s project, which highlights the beauty of Waco’s past, present, and future.

Smith drew inspiration from Fred Gildersleeve, a documentary-style photographer who captured thousands of photos of Waco sites in the early 1900s, to look back on Waco’s history to understand its past and be able to document its growth.

Baylor University’s Journalism, Public Relations and New Media Department hosted the annual student awards ceremony for 2022 in the Paul & Jane Meyer Conference Room at Foster Business School on Friday, April 22, featuring guest speaker and alumna, Claire St. Amant. For many students, this was the first time to attend the ceremony in person due to the pandemic, which required the ceremony to be held online in 2020 and 2021.