Robert S. Pritchard is an Instructor and Agency Advisor in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication and a Fellow in the Center for Intelligence and National Security.
Mr. Pritchard is a Captain, US Navy (Retired), APR, and Fellow PRSA with 25+ years of experience as a naval aviator and public affairs officer in the US Navy and 17+ years as a public relations educator. He completed his naval career as the director of public relations for the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, his third consecutive Unified Command public relations position. He was the first public relations officer assigned to the elite US Navy SEALs.
His teaching and research expertise includes student leadership development, student-run firms, strategic public relations planning, crisis communications and media relations. Before joining the Gaylord faculty, Pritchard was a tenured associate professor and the public relations sequence coordinator at Ball State University, where he was selected as the Outstanding Junior Faculty Member in 2005. He also served as faculty adviser for the nationally affiliated, student-run public relations and advertising agency, Cardinal Communications, the top student-run firm in the nation in 2008 and as the faculty adviser for the Ball State chapter of PRSSA. In 2004, he was named as the outstanding PRSSA adviser in the nation.
He partners with Professor Debbie Yount in overseeing Gaylord College's student-run advertising and public relations agency, Lindsey + Asp, which began in August 2009. He is the 2011- 2015 PRSSA National Faculty Advisor and the 2013 PRSA Outstanding Educator. Pritchard is a 1974 business administration graduate of Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma and graduated in 1988 with a master’s of art in public relations from Ball State University in Indiana.
A member of the Public Relations Society of America College of Fellows, Mr. Pritchard has been very active at the national level, having served on numerous PRSA task forces and committees and as Chair of the Educators Academy. He currently serves on the Commission on Public Relations Education, PRSA Educational Affairs Committee, MBA Initiative Task Force and 2017-2019 Strategic Planning Committee.
