UFCJC Public Relations students receive honorable mention in PRSSA’s National 2026 Bateman Case Study Competition
The University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Bateman Case Study Competition team has received an honorable mention in the 2026 contest.
The team, led by Public Relations Lecturer Christine Bucan, included public relations students Silvana Noriega, Ava Markel, Elena Limonta, Maya Vaidya, Grace Anderson and Abigail Schenker.
The competition focused on creating awareness of ACCESS Newswire’s new educational program which allows college professors access to the platform free of charge, giving students hands-on experience with press release distribution, media pitching and coverage tracking across every channel.
CommuniGATORS, the UFCJC team, created a professional education program to teach public relations fundamentals to campus startups and student entrepreneurs to show them how strategic communication helps create buzz, build credibility and support fundraising and growth. The campaign dovetailed nicely with Access Newswire’s new education program.
The campaign included presentations to the UF “Intro to Entrepreneurship” course which reaches more than 750 students, as well as a session with participants in The Big Challenge competition, where teams are actively building and pitching ventures. They also worked with UF Alpha PR clients that are on-campus start-ups, such as Ribit, a ride-sharing app created by two engineering students, and presented their concepts to UF Innovate – Accelerate to further extend the reach of their campaign.
Previously, UFCJC received first place in 2024, 2023, 2011 and 2014 and second place in 2012, 2015, 2020 and 2022.
PRSSA received 46 entries for the 2026 competition. There were 11 honorable mentions and three were chosen as finalists to present their campaigns to a panel of judges on May 7.
Category: College News, Student News
Tagged: Christine Bucan PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition Public Relations
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