Recently we ripped from the headlines the story of Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) public relations disaster dubbed “Owlcatraz.” Read the post here.
Last week, as reported by several news outlets, including the Miami Herald, university president Mary Jane Saunders submitted her resignation citing bad press. In light of FAU’s trail of PR fails, we just have to ask whether or not the resignation is the best course of action to restore the university’s reputation or is it an obvious sign of internal instability with the worst yet to come?
If FAU were a for-profit corporation spiraling in the waters of PR disaster, we’d surmise that the resignation might have been the right thing to do, but given its stature as a public institution, we contend Saunders is not the only university representative who steered its crisis communications plan (if there was one) off-course or who guided the ship of PR missteps. Inflating the raft of this calamity, the crew on deck, including the 12-member board of trustees, the public relations and legal departments, simply failed. Our best counsel to all of them is to get out of the way to end the PR agony and to restore the reputation of the first public university in southeast Florida.
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