COMM 386R
“Public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics, through the use of communication, to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals, and serve the public interest” (Flynn, Gregory & Valin, 2008).
Public relations is the field within business that strategically develops organizational reputation. In very recent years, reputation management – based on the establishment of trust through public engagement, crisis management, and social responsibility – has developed into a top priority of global CEOs and organizational leaders.
This course will prepare students to think purposefully about managing an organization’s relationships with its diverse publics to achieve its goals, fulfill its purpose, and meet its social responsibilities. The readings, lectures, discussions, guest speakers, and assignments will focus on the following key areas of public relations strategy:
- Trust and reputation management
- Stakeholder and community engagement and consultation (including Indigenous and Government relations)
- Corporate communications
- Media relations
- Issues and crisis management
- Personal PR
- Events and marketing public relations
Tamar Milne
Tamar holds a BCom (Honours) in Marketing and an MA in Applied Communication (Honours). Thirteen of her twenty years in marketing management have been dedicated to public relations roles in forestry, tourism, aviation, consumer packaged goods, and consulting. She has significant leadership experience in all aspects of public relations, including reputation management, stakeholder engagement, corporate communications, and marketing PR. Some key highlights from her career:
- Tamar was Corporate Communications Manager with Air Canada Jazz during Air Canada’s historic bankruptcy protection and restructuring and served as the media spokesperson and employee communications manager for eastern North America.
- With Robeez (baby shoes, a local entrepreneurship success story), she developed and led a comprehensive PR strategy that succeeded in securing Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of the products (via O Magazine and The Oprah Winfrey Show), seals of approval from major medical associations, the industry’s first and largest shoe donation program (long before TOMS Shoes was conceived), and new industry standards for environmental and safety performance of children’s footwear.
- Tamar led the development of Tolko Industries’ (a $2B forest products company based in BC) sustainability strategy, community engagement strategy, and corporate communications program in the late 1990s amid “the War of the Woods” public focus on the forestry industry.
- She also championed the employee engagement strategy to integrate Tolko‘s primary rival company – acquired by Tolko through a hostile takeover – into a new and improved company culture to realize the full value of the deal. This experience inspired her Masters thesis topic on organizational culture in mergers and acquisitions.
Tamar believes in Business as a Force for Good and thrives on helping others explore business ideas. She is the Chair of Sauder’s Sustainability & Ethics Group and a Faculty Liaison with UBC’s University Sustainability Initiative. In 2013, Tamar was awarded a UBC Killam Teaching Prize for teaching excellence, with specific recognition of her initiative in adopting new learning technologies and her experience in pioneering and redesigning innovative courses… such as COMM 386R.
Other courses taught in 2017/18:
- COMM 120 Business Immersion (B+MM Dual Degree)
- COMM 296 Introduction to Marketing (BCom)
- COMM 386J Strategies for Responsible Business (BCom)
- BA 560 Ethics & Sustainability (MBA)