Public Relations at PVCC

First, a definition and clarification: In the world of “marketing speak,” public relations is unpaid media, and advertising is paid media. For example, understand that an AD for your program is a designed, printed message that appears once or more frequently in a publication. There is an advertising cost associated with this. On the other hand, if you ask for publicity, or public relations for your program, that is generated by a press release that we send out to newspapers, magazines, t.v. and radio stations, and online publications. There is no cost to PVCC for furnishing this information to the media, who then use it as editorial content.....not as ads.

How we do what we do: The role of public relations is to position the College in the community as an affordable, convenient and high quality institution of education and training with many choices for educational goal achievement. We do this by building effective campaigns in support of program-specific initiatives and campus events and by incorporating best practices from our district, state and from national counterparts.


Active participation and input throughout the year by College professionals is essential for successful implementation of the marketing strategy. Feedback and input will result in continuous improvement of our planning and strategy. We value your suggestions about students, faculty, staff, and programs that might make a good news or feature story.


Each week, a series of press releases is issued explaining newsworthy new initiatives on campus, as well as releases throughout the weeks preceding the start of a new semester. At the end of the academic year, we write “successful graduate” stories for release.

• Feature Stories are researched and outlined for pitching to identified reporters.
• Calendar/Community Calendar items regarding our fine & performing arts and other public events are sent regularly to online and print outlets such as ShowUp.com, Phoenix New Times, Republic Calendar (formerly The Rep).
• We maintain ongoing dialogue with area news beat representatives to identify story opportunities that they may be interested in.
• “Success Stories” are sought for use in all promotional materials.
• Maintain an up-to-date media contact database of over 200 contacts throughout the Valley.

Deadlines & Lead Times

The different media (each radio, television station, newspapers, magazines, etc.) all have varying lead times and deadlines that they mandate, depending on the nature of the news. Following are some general guidelines to follow when submitting an item to the PR Office for possible media coverage: