April 27, 2007

When a Campus Is in the National Spotlight, Public-Relations Officers Feel the Heat

By SCOTT CARLSON

The television trucks and newspaper reporters, like locusts, swarmed last week into Blacksburg, Va., where Virginia Tech is located. The university's administrators and especially its public-relations staff members are steeling themselves for what will be a long and intense feeding frenzy.

For the men and women who speak for colleges, being thrust into a national spotlight can be a trying time.

"Your adrenaline is going to carry you, but only so far," says John F. Burness,

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