By Janese Silvey
If someone had told Reporter Janese that being a PR person is more stressful than being a reporter, I would have laughed. Out loud.
But according to a new analysis, public relations is more stressful than newspaper reporting. I’ve not been in this job long enough to compare the two so I can’t tell you yet whether I think that’s accurate.
Then again, the CareerCast.com list looks kinda bogus in the first place.
The job site ranked being a college professor as the least stressful job in America.
Say what?
I don’t know them well enough yet to gauge their stress levels, but I can tell you Stephens College faculty members aren’t resting on their laurels as implied in an accompanying Forbes story.
When they’re not teaching – and our 55 some full-time faculty members do plenty of teaching – Stephens professors are going above and beyond classroom duties to make sure they and their students get the professional experiences they need to be competitive.
There’s Dr. Mark Thompson, an assistant professor of historical studies, who presented at the 40th annual Western Society for French History conference in Canada in October. Tina Ehrhardt, director of the graduate business programs, was recently named president-elect of the Human Resources Association of Central Missouri and selected as a board member for the Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge. You can read about them here.
Then there’s Monica McMurry, dean of the School of Fashion and Design, who participated in an international fashion symposium in Beijing last year. She joined scholars and designers from around the world showing off their designs at the Beijing Institute of Fashion and Technology and the International Textile and Apparel Association Symposium. Check out the connections she made and experiences she had here.
When she wasn’t teaching, Graphic Design professor Kate Gray spent last year involved in several service and professional projects. She was a featured artist at Alliance Art Gallery in Hannibal, presented “Art in the Classroom” at a teaching conference in Michigan and was the featured artist at MU’s TEDx event last spring.
Those are just a few examples of what I’ve learned about Stephens faculty my first week on the job. I’ll be telling you more about the professors and instructors here as I get to know them.
That is, if they’re not too stressed to talk to me.
