Bateman team highlights ‘Culturs’ on campus with new magazine

The Bateman team’s Culturs Campus magazine is giving a voice to cultures in more ways than one. The Culturs Campus magazine is inspired by their client for the Bateman competition, Culturs, a global multicultural magazine. Although Culturs Campus is a Lee publication and Culturs is a global one, the goal was the same: to create a space for and give a voice to people of multicultural backgrounds. 

The missing “e” in “Culturs” is purposeful too. 

“The missing ‘e’ represents the hidden diversities of their audience. Their goal is to present people in between cultures, like military brats, Third Culture kids…that’s the goal for them which also makes it the goal of ours because we’re representing them,” said senior public relations major Regan Henkey. 

Each year, the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) runs the Bateman Case Study Competition. According to the PRSSA’s website, the competition is a national case study for public relation students that gives students public relation campaign experience beyond what is taught in the classroom. A client is given to all participants in the competition. The aim is to create a campaign that meets the goals of the client. 

The Culturs Campus magazine created for the Bateman Case Study Competition. Photo by Bateman team member Jaden Boyd.

The client for the 2024 Bateman Case Study Competition was Culturs. 

“The purpose of it is… for the students, to give them a chance to practice their skills, learn and develop news skills, have fun, showcase what they are learning to their community to serve the client. It’s giving them real world experience in a college campus setting,” said Dr. Andrea Phillips, public relations professor and faculty advisor for the Bateman team.

“Bateman is very much real world deadlines, real world interviews with people…we’re working for a client that actually exists in real life. So definitely my favorite part has been the reality of it and knowing that there are real life implications and real life rewards, not just a grade on a test,” said Jaden Boyd, a senior public relations major.

The 2024 Lee Bateman team was made up of five public relations students: Drew Allen, Jaden Boyd, Regan Henkey and Hannah Murry with Brian Conn and Dr. Phillips serving as advisors for the team. 

According to Phillips, planning and preparation for the Bateman Case Study Competition begins in the fall semester after the Bateman team receives information about their client. Students on the team conducted research on Culturs to understand their goals for the campaign, as well as research on campus through surveys, focus groups, interviews and more. The research was then analyzed to see ways to approach the public relations campaign to meet Culturs goals as the client. With this information, the Bateman team created the Culturs Campus magazine. 

The campaign officially began in mid-February and lasted until March 5. After the campaign ended, the Bateman team wrote a report on their campaign results and will send all resources to the PRSSA for grading and scoring. 

“And then they get to sleep,” Phillips joked.

The primary goal for the client, Culturs, during the course of the Bateman competition was to spread brand awareness and expand their target audience to college campuses, according to Dr. Phillips. Because of this, the Culturs Campus magazine focused on highlighting the stories of those from multicultural backgrounds. Based on the Culturs website, this includes geographically mobile people, such as immigrants, refugees and Third Culture Kids, as well as multiethnic, multicultural and mixed-raced individuals. 

 “It’s a campus arm of the Culturs’ brand,” said Phillips. 

The Culturs Campus magazine describes itself as “content for students by students.” Although the Bateman team designed the magazine, all stories and photos are by Lee students.

 “This is by students because our goal was by students, for students,” said Henkey. 

The magazine features stories and photographs from students about their experiences on cross-cultural trips completed with the university. 

Phillips commented that the focus on writing about global-perspective trips in Culturs Campus gave students the unique opportunity to share their trip experience and “what they appreciate about other cultures.” She adds that it gives students the ability to “talk about their own culture and what it’s like crossing over into different cultures.”

“We tossed around the idea of one campus, many perspectives,” said Boyd. “So just whenever we use different articles from all over the campus, it definitely added to that community aspect. It’s not just someone being talked at from our club, our brand or our image.”

The magazine was released on February 16 and was available to all students during the course of the campaign. The Bateman team also spearheaded other cultural events on campus to promote their campaign, including the Tastes of Home event and Community Conversations.

Bateman team members Hannah Murry and Regan Henkey. Photo by Jaden Boyd.

The creation of Culturs Campus is more than creating a product for the Bateman competition or giving students the ability to share their stories in a magazine. Even after the competition ended, the Bateman team still hopes to give students of multicultural backgrounds a voice and a community on campus. 

The team created a GroupMe for students to continue the conversation of what it looks like to come from different cultural backgrounds or share their experiences with interacting with different cultures. The GroupMe will still be available for students to join even after the campaign for the Bateman competition ends.

“I think what we were trying to highlight the most of this isn’t just a magazine where you read the articles and that’s all. It’s not a transactional thing and it’s not a consumer thing,” said Boyd. “It’s a community, a real life community that you can talk to people who are like you and talk to people who aren’t like you and read stories that reflect your life and read stories that give you a new perspective into other people’s lives.”

Similar to the mission of Culturs, the Bateman team has recognized a need for students to have a space to share their experiences and connect with other students. The Bateman team hopes that their campaign encourages conversations regarding diversity and culture long after their campaign is over.

“The end goal of all of this, whether it’s a month or not, was just to highlight the multicultural…scope on campus and bring light to it,” said Henkey. 

For more information about the Bateman Case Study Competition visit their website.

To learn more about Culturs magazine, visit their website.

Disclaimer: Social media accounts and resources related to the Culturs Campus had to be taken down at the end of the campaign per rules of the Bateman competition. For this reason, the website link to Culturs Campus and social media accounts have become inactive. The Group Me is still ongoing and active. Students can join the Group Me at https://groupme.com/join_group/99475264/29RFPEsU.