Staff
Adara Donald
Media School assistant director of student recruitment
Adara Donald, BAJ’21, MS’23, Media School assistant director of student recruitment
“I view public relations — and just media and communications — as a tool for service, specifically community service.
[Before coming to IU], I was thinking that PR was just a subset of marketing. I was like, ‘Okay — Kelley.’ And then I eventually discovered that PR is a subset of journalism in The Media School. I still came to IU and settled in at The Media School and never looked back.
For my thesis — my capstone — I decided to focus on strategic communications, but in higher education, specifically focusing on Black student retention rates. And what I found through a lot of my research was a lot of the miscommunication or reasons why there are low Black student retention rates. It starts with when students are coming to college — they have this idea of what they think it's going to be like — and that's not exactly what it is to make it here.
When I found out about this role in The Media School, I was like, ‘This — this is something that I know, this is something that I am passionate about. And this is something that I can do to help students when they're coming to college.’
Something that I loved so much about being a student within The Media School is that even though I focused on PR — which is very writing-centered — I loved being able to go into the areas of classes that worked on production and worked on graphic design and got to know how a lot of people thought because that's part of my area: figuring out how the public thinks.
I get up every day and I say, ‘It's going to be a new day, and we can reach somebody, and if not, then we'll make an action plan on how to move forward.’ I wanted to be in a position where I could help students make the most informed decisions possible when they're making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.
For seniors looking for careers, or just anybody looking for a career, it is okay to not know what you want to do, especially for the rest of your life. Do what makes you happy because no one else cares if you're happy but you or friends and family.”
Written By Ellie Albin
Photos By Michelle Rezsonya