Dr. Dean Kruckeberg, APR, Fellow PRSA, is a tenured full professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls. He was coordinator of the Public Relations Degree Program and of the Mass Communication Division from 1983 through summer 2003. Kruckeberg has a bachelor of arts degree in English with a journalism minor from Wartburg College; a master of arts degree in journalism in the public relations sequence from Northern Illinois University; and a doctor of philosophy degree in mass communications from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. He has more than a decade of professional experience in public relations and journalism, including for Lutheran General Hospital in Chicago and the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Minnesota. He has taught at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, the University of Iowa, Northwest Missouri State University, and for the past 22 years at the University of Northern Iowa.
He has served as head of the Public Relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication; chair of the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association; as a Director of the Public Relations Society of American and chair of that organization’s Educators Section. He was a member of the Research and Educational Advisory Board of the Institute for Public Relations, and is a charter member of that organization’s Commission on International Public Relations.
Kruckeberg’s consulting work has included review of the public relations and mass communication programs at the United Arab Emirates University. During summer 1994, he was part of the project team that developed the public relations degree program at that university.
Kruckeberg is co-author of the book, Public Relations and Community: A Reconstructed Theory, which won the first annual PRIDE Award from the Speech Communication Association Commission on Public Relations. He is also the author of many book chapters, articles and papers dealing with international public relations and ethics. Dr. Kruckeberg is co-author of the 8th (2004), 7th (2000) and 6th (1996) editions of This Is PR: The Realities of Public Relations, a major public relations textbook.
He was the 1997 recipient of the Pathfinder Award presented by the Institute for Public Relations as the premier award for research in public relations in the United States. Kruckeberg was the 1995 national Outstanding Educator of the Public Relations Society of America. He is a winner of the 1997 State of Iowa Regents Faculty Excellence Award. Kruckeberg is the elected Academic Co-Chair of the Commission on Public Relations Education. This consortium of professional and scholarly association representatives is determining guidelines for public relations curricula and pedagogy for the next decade. He is co-researcher of a study released globally by the Institute for Public Relations in 2003, ranking 66 countries according to the likelihood that their daily newspaper reporters seek or accept bribery for editorial coverage.
Dean A. Kruckeberg, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Global Public Relations
University of North Carolina-Charlotte
Communication Studies (Coas)
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28223
Phone: 704-687-3183
Fax: 704-687-6900