NEWS RELEASE
Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu)
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
http://www.nsula.edu/news
1/09/2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES – As the country goes through the 2008 campaign for president, one of the nation’s leading political consultants will lead a semester long lecture series at Northwestern State University to help students and those in business or non-profit agencies understand how political campaign techniques can help them communicate more effectively.
The series is part of Journalism 4100, “Opinion Writing: Persuasive Communications,” and will be taught by Political Consultant Raymond Strother, the 2007-08 Erbon W. and Marie Wise Endowed Chair in Journalism, at Northwestern. The Lecture Series is being offered through Northwestern State University’s Office of Electronic and Continuing Education and Department of Journalism. In addition to for credit enrollment for NSU students, non-students can take part though a non-credit course for $99 or $15 per session.
The class will be held on Thursdays from 5 p.m. until 7:50 p.m. in Room 146 of the Family and Consumer Sciences Building.
Several nationally recognized figures from the field of politics and the media are scheduled to participate. The course will explore political campaign techniques that are increasingly being used by business in defining a message, understanding an audience and communicating a viewpoint. According to Strother, the techniques are called persuasive communication by some while others refer to it as the techniques of propaganda. Seasoned professionals will guide the participants through proven techniques to win a point and influence public opinion. An optional textbook used for non-credit students will be “The Manship School Guide to Political Communication” by David D. Perlmutter. The book should be available at online bookstores.
Those interested in communication in business, government, political science or journalism should benefit from the class.
Among the planned featured speakers who will come to Northwestern are Mark McKinnon, the former media advisor for President George W. Bush; Mark Mellman, the pollster for John Kerry, and Carin Pratt, the producer of CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Strother has been the media producer and consultant for presidential candidates, U.S. senators, governors and members of Congress. He has been named to the LSU Journalism Hall of Fame and the Long Purple Line at Northwestern. He served as both president and chairman of the board of the American Association of Political Consultants, and in 1999 was a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. In 2004, he was named the first honorary Fellow at the University of Akron. In 2002 Strother was given a new national award created to recognize political professionals who have an “exemplary record of achievement in the field and contributions to students and academic institutions.” The annual award is now called “The Strother.”
In 2006, an exhibit depicting his life was dedicated in the Hall of Notable People in the Gulf Coast Museum.
For more information or to register for this class, please call (318) 357-6355 or (800) 376-2422.
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