Crimson and Gold Connection; Dr. Alicia Mason

Welcome to Crimson & Gold Connection, keeping you connected to the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This is Trent Johnson. Thanks for joining us for Crimson & Gold Connection. Today our guest is Dr. Alicia Mason. Dr. Mason, thanks so much for joining us here today. What is your job position at Pittsburgh State University and how long have you been here? I am an associate professor in the Department of Communication and this is my seventh year with PSU. What is your favorite part about what you do? I am never bored. I get to work with some amazing students and help them realize their dreams, so that's very rewarding. What classes do you teach with that position here? Currently I teach classes in advertising and public relations within the Department of Communication and then I also work with students in our sustainability society and resource management degree program. So I work with a group of interdisciplinary scholars on campus and teach classes such as introduction to sustainability and also natural resource and conflict management. You're joining us today to talk about an event that the Department of Communication hosted recently and this was an expert panel entitled Risky Business, the Art and Science of Risk and Crisis Communication.

Who had the idea to bring this panel to campus and how did it become a reality? Interestingly, I had two of my upper undergraduate students out in the field over the summer and they were placed with organizations that, due to some organizational changes, couldn't really fulfill their internship obligations. So they were just kind of left out there and I thought, well, what can we do to help them get that applied event coordination experience that they were seeking in those internships? And so it just kind of was a win-win. I had students in need and saw an opportunity to take advantage of that new Bignal Center for an educational purpose and we just began brainstorming together. And now that we know how it got here, what was the main focus of this panel? I think the main focus was to highlight two specific forms of communication, both risk and crisis communication and then also shed some light on regional issues that we are facing across the four state region. Could you talk a little bit more in depth about what that risk communication and the crisis communication, what those are a little bit?

Absolutely. A lot of times in public relations and advertising, we focus on the positive. But risk and crisis communication is a specialized form that usually takes place when you're dealing with negative situations. So on the risk side of communication, we are generally focusing on being proactive, trying to avoid negative outcomes, preventing crises from occurring. Whereas in crisis communication, rather than being proactive, you're reacting to events on the ground. And oftentimes that involves addressing stakeholders concerns, limiting the damage from the crisis situation and then also moving stakeholders to a point of learning and recovery and rebuilding. This panel featured speakers, Doug Heady of KOAM TV here in Pittsburgh and Joplin area, the director of ecosystems management at Oklahoma Grand River Dam Authority, Darrell Townsend, Jeff Poe, former business executive of Pitt Plastics, as well as the mayor of NeoShow, Missouri Richard Davidson. How was it to have such a broad range of individuals come and give their thoughts on this event?

It was really fantastic. We were so grateful to each of the panelists who donated their time and participated in the panel offering their professional insights on situations that they've had to address in the past. And our students as well, it was great to see them interacting with these professionals. And these professionals, they do come from a broad range of different areas. How did their different perspectives of this form of communication, how did they mesh together and what kind of different ideas did they add? I think anyone you ask that will probably have a different perspective, but we just began with a general theme and asked the panelists to again share their experiences. I think with Jeff Poe and his background with Pitt Plastics, he was able to paint the picture of how systemic issues can emerge for organizations when they're impacted by negative weather events such as hurricanes. Dr. Townsend from the Oklahoma GRDA, I think was able to show how interconnected we are throughout this region. So even though we have Pittsburgh State University in Kansas, our regional environment is impacted from people from Marion all the way down to the people of Grove, Oklahoma.

So I think his presentation was able to shed light on some of the environmental issues that we're facing. Mayor Davidson, what an excellent speaker, did a fantastic job of highlighting how NeoShow went through that rebuilding and recovery process through a very difficult financial time. And then also very grateful for Doug Heady's participation who was able to shed light on the role of risk communication in regards to negative weather events and how important it is that we adhere to warnings. They're there for reasons, but these types of risks were almost desensitized to them because they happen all the time. Sometimes when you hear the report, there's a tornado warning to some people that translates to get the kids, grab the car and the camera, we're going to chase it down. And sometimes you can expose yourself to unnecessary risks or maybe undervalue the risks that are actually there. So I think he did a great job of highlighting some of those issues that we face in the region. What did this panel bring to the university that might not be found elsewhere?

I don't know if they do academic panels of this nature at other universities, so I can't speak to that. When it comes to Pittsburgh State, I think the panel really drew from a variety of perspectives to address some of the issues we face when it comes to sustainability society and resource management programs. And Pittsburgh State was the first, and I believe we still are the only program that has a degree in that field. And it's an integrated studies program, and so we work with biologists and geographers and communication students and hopefully expanding on into business, but we're providing unique learning opportunities for students and hoping in that process that they learn that these things are not isolated events. When you have a systems perspective, it's easy to see how the actions of one in the north could affect the lives of those in the south. And so I think it highlights the role of people coming together to help address those issues. Personally, what did you want the university and attendees to take away from this event, and do you think that this event succeeded in that? For those who attended, I hope they learn more about some specific incidents that practitioners in our region have had to face in the past.

I especially hope they humanized our community leaders because oftentimes they're only names in the media. And so it was interesting to hear the thought processes behind the strategic decisions they made at different points and the risk or the crisis life cycles they were speaking of. As far as success, I don't know the numbers yet. I'm hoping to have those by the end of the week. We did collect audience feedback to see if this is something that the community and students thought was valuable, but all the informal preliminary feedback I've received is very positive, and that's encouraging. Why is it important for the university to host events such as this? Any time that we can do something with zero risk and all benefit, then we should do it. And that's what this event was. It was a win-win for the students and the audience members. And I just can't thank our community sponsors enough. What events similar to this? Are you hoping to host in the future? Well, I went into this thinking it was a one time only thing.

And I've learned in the past few days that there is an interest and people I've received that question quite a bit. We'll do it so long as students are interested in their community interests. As far as a future direction for it, perhaps making it more topic specific. I've been playing around with ideas about maybe featuring a health panel. We have about 40 million people in the United States today over the age of 60 and by 2020 that's going to double to 80 million. We're going to put a severe demand on the resources of our health care organization and practitioners. I think PSU has been sensitive to this through the advancements in our nursing program, the DMP that's come online. And I think in the future I'd like to talk with the NIH and the National Institute of Health and see if we can't do something that's again regionally based, community oriented and educational to those in the audience. Again, today our guest has been Dr. Alicia Mason of Pittsburgh State University. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection, Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.