Staff Report
September 20, 2022
Dillard has formed a partnership with PAN Communications, a leading integrated marketing and public relations firm for business-to-business technology and healthcare brands. The partnership is part of PAN’s new BIPOC fellowship program to offer HBCU students a deeper understanding of the integrated marketing and public relations profession in the B2B technology and healthcare industries. The initiative, which is called PAN P.R.E.P. (Public Relations Experience Program), is part of the firm’s PAN Portal Program which creates opportunities for undergraduate senior students pursuing their bachelor’s degrees in communications or journalism in an effort to deliver hands-on work experience in a fast-paced agency setting.
Students who participate in PAN P.R.E.P. will be partnered with account team members from PAN. The team members will serve as dedicated career coaches and peer mentors for a 12-week, paid internship. Students will be exposed to agency work through authentic client relations. Students will learn to conduct news scans, identify media targets, draft pitches, write industry-specific content, organize social calendars and more.
Today is the beginning of a four-part guest lecture series as part of the PAN Portal. The first installment features PAN’s president and CEO Phil Nardone who will talk to Dillard’s students about his journey from a PR firm receptionist to founding PAN, which employs over 200 people virtually and in offices in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Orlando and London. Nardone launched the PAN Portal in 2016 while he was an adjunct professor at the Syracuse University Newhouse School of Communications where President Rochelle L. Ford was a tenured professor and chair of the public relations department at the time.
The next lectures will focus on everything from agency dynamics to compiling ePortforlios. Lecturers will include: human resources business partner, Eva Barry-Murphy; director, Marki Conway; senior business development manager, John Vernon; executive vice president of integrated marketing, Meg Kessler; vice president of integrated marketing, Lauren Kaufman; and vice president, Brandon Thomas.
The fellowship for Dillard students will begin in 2023.
