TV in updated neutral room showing news program

Expanding the Public Engagement Program

The Public Engagement Program in the Office of Marketing and Communications is a suite of services designed to promote faculty and research nationwide. This work supports Ohio State’s land grant mission by increasing awareness of new science and research, and providing trustworthy, fact-based expertise on high profile topics.

Associated Press Campus Insights

The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC), the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK), the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA), and Wexner Medical Center (WMC) are working collaboratively to identify faculty members to highlight based on university priorities and public interest, and as a result, we submit two video interviews featuring Ohio State faculty to the Associated Press (AP) each week. The AP distributes these interviews to TV stations coast-to-coast.

Our first submission was research from the College of Arts and Sciences about gun safety. The interview aired in 62 markets nationwide, including Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Boston (6 of the top 10 TV markets in the United States).

In the first three months of the partnership, each interview aired an average of 150 times nationwide.

Public News Service

Whereas the AP partnership is designed to reach a large, national audience, the goals for our Public News Service (PNS) partnership are different. Many PNS members are small, “full service” radio stations in rural communities. Their audiences are less likely to have a direct connection with Ohio State, so for this partnership we are specifically seeking out research that has an impact in these communities, such as health care, agriculture and veterinary medicine.

OMC works with college and unit partners to select research to highlight based on university priorities and listener interest in rural Ohio. A PNS reporter then interviews the faculty member and produces a radio news story for member radio stations.

Our first interview was about drought and agriculture research from the Department of Geography. It aired in eight small markets and on community radio stations in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, with a total estimated audience of 172,814 Ohioans. The partnership has also led to organic faculty interviews.