Scott Juba, one of the first students to graduate from Kent State's new PR master’s program, recently was selected as the Distinguished Graduate Student of the year by the Ohio Communication Association at the 71st Annual OCA Conference in Youngstown in October.

"We’re proud of Scott and everything he¹s accomplished during his graduate studies at Kent," said Jeanette Drake, associate professor. "He represents our program very well in that his work blends solid skills with a deep understanding of strategy and research. During his master’s work, Scott developed a specialty in social media, and that’s the kind of thing that will help our graduates stand out."

Juba, who graduated in August, was a co-investigator with Jeanette Drake, associate professor of public relations and Bill Sledzik, associate professor of public relations, on a major blogging study presented at the Institute for Public Relations in Miami, Fla., in March.

In a groundbreaking survey of 928 public relations practitioners, they found that although nearly 90 percent would like to know what’s being said by bloggers about their organization, just under 20 percent reported using a formal blog monitoring process, and even fewer use blogs to communicate.

Juba has used these experiences as a springboard for his own research, "The Nature and Use of Blog Measurement as Defined by PR Professionals," which went on to gauge attitudes about metrics for blogging.

Juba is available for comment at Sjuba8@aol.com.

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Media contact:

Rachel Wenger-Pelosi, 330-672-8046 or rwenger@kent.edu