A team of School of Communications students received an honorable mention in PRSSA’s premier national competition, applying classroom learning to a real-world client campaign.
A team of School of Communications students has earned national recognition in the 2026 Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) Bateman Case Study Competition, receiving an honorable mention for its campaign implementation and overall deliverables.
The Bateman Competition is PRSSA’s premier national case study competition, challenging undergraduate student teams to design and execute a public relations campaign for a real-world client. This year’s competition featured 46 entries from students representing universities across the country, with 11 teams earning honorable mention distinction. A full list of honored institutions appears below.
Elon’s team developed and implemented a strategic communications campaign for ACCESS Newswire, a media monitoring and news distribution service. The research and planning for the campaign began in January. The campaign implementation, conducted from February to March, focused on tactics to promote the company’s new educational program and platform, which provides professors free access so students can gain hands-on experience with press release distribution, media pitching, sentiment analysis and media coverage tracking.
The Elon student team included Hannah Parker ’26 (account manager), Sydney Griffith ’29, Brooke Menzock ’26, Sandy Orozco-Rosaldo ’28, Taylor Radney ’28 and Grace Wizel ’28. Karen Lindsey, assistant professor of strategic communications, served as the team’s faculty adviser and applauded the students’ efforts.
“Our Elon Bateman team spent countless hours in the evenings and on weekends to research, plan and implement the campaign,” she said. “From writing a series of thought leadership articles for Substack to facilitating faculty focus groups on and off campus, they created a meaningful campaign that challenged them.
“I’m incredibly proud of how they balanced the demands of their regular coursework with dedication to this competition. The experience produced the kind of work for their professional portfolios that employers want to see.”
The competition’s three finalists will present their campaigns to the national PRSSA board and ACCESS Newswire representatives on May 7 to determine the winner.
Bateman Case Study Competition
Finalists:
Montclair State University
Texas State University AdvoCats
Texas State University StarCats
Honorable Mentions:
Brigham Young University – Navy Team
California State University, Long Beach
Elon University
High Point University
Kent State University Gold
Louisiana State University
Loyola University New Orleans
University of Florida CommuniGATORS
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
University of Oklahoma Gaylord College
University of Tennessee, Knoxville