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BATEMAN CONTEST TIMELINE
OCTOBER 2023
CLIENT BRIEF RELEASED
PRSSA announces Culturs as the 2024 client; case study materials shared with chapters.
NOVEMBER 2023
ONBOARDING & TRAINING
Teams attend the official Culturs webinar/Q&A and review resource packets.
DECEMBER 2023 –JANUARY 2024
RESEARCH & PLANNING PHASE
Primary and secondary research conducted, strategies developed, and campaign plans finalized.
Gen Z is looking for authentic, shared spaces that acknowledge layered identities and encourage people to own their stories.
FEBRUARY – MARCH 2024
CAMPAIGN IMPLEMENTATION
Teams launch activations on campuses and in local communities, executing tactics outlined in their plans.
APRIL 2024
EVALUATION & REPORTING
Campaigns conclude; teams compile results, analyze metrics, and submit comprehensive case reports.
MAY 2, 2024
FINAL PRESENTATIONS & JUDGING
Top three finalists present live to PRSSA judges and Culturs; winners announced.
For Culturs, it became a proving ground to see how young communicators would interpret its mission and how cultural identity resonated across communities.
“In today’s globalized world, it’s essential to expose students to a wide range of cultures,” says Christine Bucan, faculty adviser to the University of Florida team. “That’s why I lead study abroad programs and take students to international conferences, like the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, which showcases the best communications work from around the globe. I also draw on my international work, including management training sessions in Ghana, to help students see how culture shapes communication.”
Bucan herself has a crosscultural family: Her husband is from Croatia, and she has Italian heritage; meanwhile, her kids hold three passports. They were born abroad and the family moved to New York City, N.Y., U.S.A. once the kids started school. While Bucan served as public relations adviser to the United Nations for Croatia during the year, her children continued to enjoy summers across the pond with their Croatian family.
“We made a conscious effort to raise them in a bicultural household,” she says. “It was important to us that they understood and embraced both sides of their identity.”
Bucan’s personal and professional background made her an ideal adviser for the contestwinning team and a natural advocate for the Culturs mission, one she deeply understands.
“At the end of the day, we’re all human,” she says. “The goal was to bring people together and celebrate their hyphenated identities and the richness that comes from living between cultures.”
Testing A Rebrand In Real Time
Indeed for Culturs, Bateman was more than a competition. It was a chance to validate ideas already underway in its rebrand. The student campaigns delivered insights that mirrored the organization’s next phase: launching ambassador networks, experimenting with new content formats and forging partnerships that expand reach.
The research also exposed how Gen Z views cultural identity in practice. Students surveyed peers, hosted conversations, and documented where traditional “diversity” frameworks left gaps.
Their findings echoed what Culturs leadership suspected — Gen Z is looking for authentic, shared spaces that acknowledge layered identities and encourage people to own their stories.
Tatiana Rodriguez, a Cuban Italian American and now account coordinator at Dan Klores Communications in New York, hails from the University of Florida and reflects on the personal impact of their campaign.
“Culturs’ mission deeply resonated with me and my team, and we were honored to be tasked with amplifying its presence within our community. One of the most rewarding aspects of the process was getting to connect with individuals from diverse backgrounds who were eager to share their stories with us and support our efforts,” she says.
Lessons Learned
The three finalists highlighted different pathways forward (see sidebar for details). Florida created community recognition with “Culturs Day.” Montclair State University amplified the brand through influencer collaboration and media partnerships. Brigham Young University embedded personal narratives within institutional support and community business.
Together, they showed Culturs its rebrand was on track. Students confirmed that ambassadors, new content formats and partnerships are the right tools to expand the mission.
For Culturs, the sponsorship delivered both proof of concept and inspiration.
Glimpse Into The Future
The Bateman Competition has always been about learning by doing. Students run campaigns from research to evaluation, giving them professional-grade experience.
“While the campaign was emotionally and intellectually fulfilling, we also had the opportunity to learn practical skills like media pitching, event hosting, qualitative research, etc. We executed a full PR campaign from beginning to end and gained experiences that many don’t have until much later in their careers,” Rodriguez says.
But in 2024, it also became a forum for something bigger: affirming the value of cultural identity in public communication. By partnering with PRSA to sponsor Bateman, Culturs not only offered students a client brief, it invited them into a conversation about who gets seen, who feels heard and how belonging is built.
The University of Florida team’s Janelle Puckering has Puerto Rican and Black American heritage and now works as an analyst at Gladstone Place Partners in New York City. She says the campaign changed how she saw herself: “The Culturs campaign got me involved in my community and made me engage with my identity in ways I never had before.”
She emphasized the campaign allowed them to create “opportunities for dialogue around intersectionality and belonging in a time where these spaces are more critical than ever.”
The campaigns from the University of Florida, Montclair State University and Brigham Young University demonstrate that when students are challenged to create meaningful spaces, they rise to the occasion. They prove the stories of people who live “in between” cultures are not only worth telling — they are worthy of holding the spotlight on center stage.
We created opportunities for dialogue around intersectionality and belonging in a time where these spaces are more critical than ever.
— Janelle Puckering
To learn more about the Bateman Competition, scan the code below. cultursmag.com/how-student-pr-teams-helped
