Seniors Will Brewer and Ashley Rich are finalists in the PR Week magazine Student of The Year Competition. Brewer and Rich’s submissions were a part of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs professor Christian Anderson’s Strategic Communication Campaigns class that was taught in the fall.

Each student in the class is asked to develop a campaign for a client of Anderson’s choice. After class projects students submit their entries to the PR Week competition. The top five candidates from the United States went to New York for a final showdown. Over 100 candidates submitted a campaign to enter the competition sponsored by Weber Shandwick.

The world’s leading weekly PR publication, PR Week is the first weekly magazine to offer nationwide coverage of the public relations business.

The PR Week award is for students that display outstanding ability in a range of core PR skills, and it is designed to attract, encourage and reward future talent. It is open to all undergraduate students who are enrolled during the eligibility without regard to field of study.

The final contest took place in New York City and required students to present their campaign to executives from a chosen client. This year’s client was Monster.com.

Then they had to pitch a story related to their campaign to a reporter from Fortune magazine and develop a 10-minute plan to manage the client’s faux crisis.

For the past three years, SMU students have advanced to the final round of the competition. Last year, Michael Dorff, who is currently working for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., was a finalist and finished as the runner-up.

“The competition has provided students with practical experience in developing a strategic campaign for an actual client,” Anderson said. “It also gives students the opportunity to compete nationally with other respected programs.”

The winner will receive $5,000 and a paid internship at Weber’s office New York. The runner up will receive $1,500 and an internship.

Brewer and Rich will return to New York in March for PR Week’s annual awards dinner where the winners will be announced.

“It was definitely a great experience,” Brewer said. “It was one of the neatest academic experiences of my college career. ”

“The competition has helped our program and our students gain additional exposure in New York while boosting credibility,” Anderson said. “When this competition rolls around, the folks in New York start looking for entries from SMU.

“We’re clearly the benchmark.”