GIVEN A “LEMON,” IONA COLLEGE

PUBLIC RELATIONS STUDENTS

DEAL WITH A CRISIS AND “MAKE LEMONADE”

FOR RELEASE: SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2001.

NEW ROCHELLE NY, April 7. – “When you’re given a lemon, learn to make Lemonade!” That was the time-tested crisis-handling advice given by Professor P. Michael McDermott of Iona College to his public relations students today at a special conference on how to deal with crisis communications.

One week ago, a contingent of Iona College public relations students were set to go to Syracuse University for a weekend crisis communications simulation. “When we found out that the conference had been cancelled at the last minute, my first thought was that “We’ve been given a lemon,” said McDermott, who had worked to prepare his students to deal with communicating during emergencies. His response was, “Let’s make lemonade!” and turns the cancelled event into a constructive crisis-communications exercise.

Today the Iona College Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), held a special mini-conference entitled “PR – Perceptions and Realities for Young Professionals.” Recent Iona College alumni of its Flagship Mass Communication Department told attendees about perceptions and realities of the job market for corporate public relations, agency public relations and the news media. The attendees were also told how to work effectively with executive recruiting firms. Today’s speakers included: James Wyckoff; Senior Vice President of Marshall Consultants of New York City; Joseph Moscone (Iona 2000), Cisco Systems of Acton, Massachusetts; Richard Logis (Iona 2000) of the PATENT-TRADER of Mount Kisco, New York; and Robert Fiore (Iona 2001) of Cazenove, Inc., of New York City.

The Public Relations Student Society of America is the college-level arm of the Public Relations Society of America, Inc., the world’s largest public relations professional association. PRSSA has over 6,500 students in some 225 chapters nationwide. The PRSA Westchester/Fairfield Chapter sponsors the Iona College Chapter of PRSSA.

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