Potential Female and Minority Communication Educators: An Exploratory Study of Their Views on Teaching as a Profession.

Members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Public Relations Division were asked to nominate alumni, who were not full-time educators but who appeared to be excellent prospects for academic careers, for a study of attitudes of potential communication instructors toward teaching as a career move. The 27 nominees, most of them white, female graduate students or public relations practitioners, rated each of 10 factors as an advantage or disadvantage to public relations education. Overall, the results suggested a rather favorable view of public relations teaching as a job experience. However, most respondents believed salaries to be low and advancement opportunities limited considering the job experience and training required for academic work. Other findings include the following: (1) those with substantial graduate education tended more than others to rate academic careers favorably in terms of opportunities for creativity and genuine service, (2) those with more public relations work experience saw less opportunity for advancement in an academic career, (3) almost none of the respondents expressed concern about direct or "de facto" discrimination about women or minorities in academe, and (4) several respondents expressed interest in adjunct-faculty positions, which they felt required limited commitment, without appearing to recognize the rather restricted role and lack of security attached to such jobs. (HTH)