When Your Graduate Student Writes A Groundbreaking Masters Capstone Thesis

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to my Master of Communications Management capstone student, Sharlyn Carrington, present the results of her groundbreaking study on the lived experiences of 21 black women who work in public relations in Canada (mostly Ontario). It was one of those moments that makes your extremely proud to be a professor, a mentor, a researcher and a colleague.

Shar’s own lived experience working in public relations in Ontario is what drove her interest in this research. It is an excellent example of trying to make sense a phenomenon (have other black female public relations practitioners in Ontario had the same experiences as I have in my career) and diving into the literature on gender, race, intersectionality and public relations.

My McMaster University colleagues (Drs. Philip Savage and Alex Sevigny) believe that this thesis has at least 2-3 manuscripts that could be carved from her study and are very encouraging of Shar to pursue publication (and maybe even further graduate studies!).

Here are three recommendations that Sharlyn landed on at the end of her research:

1. Black women need to be disruptors — “black female practitioners have a huge responsibility to be disruptors, to be brave and speak out when they see and experience unacceptable behaviours. These practitioners can encourage more black women to enter and to stay in public relations, find more opportunities to mentor, help crate networks and find opportunities to be seen to the younger generation of diverse practitoners”.

2. Public relations associations need to be scupltors — It is the responsibility of associations and public relations programs to reshape and rebuild the reputation of public relations. They should look for opportunities to employ more diverse faculty and guest speakers, because seeing black leaders and practitioners can send the signal to diverse audiences and student that they too can succeed in this practice.”

3. Organizations need to be nurturers — Organizations need to shape the environment in which public relations operates. They can increase diversity by creating an open environment where people can talk about inclusion, and experiences without fear and enforce cultural sensitivity and unconscious bias training.

I look forward to reading her published articles in the not so distant future — warning to public relations journals … these articles will be arriving in your editor’s inboxes in 2019 —  groundbreaking research results are on their way.

Hopefully Shar will also be available to present her findings to professional associations and public relations programs across Canada.

Congrats Shar — thanks for inviting me along for this wonderful journey.