Northwestern students in Evanston got into the Olympic spirit during Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games. Now, their peers in Qatar have their chance.
Northwestern University in Qatar and the Qatar Olympic Committee announced Oct. 7 that NU-Q public relations students will be working on designing an original communications plan for the Qatar Schools Olympic Program.
“It’s a good partnership because one of the things we’re encouraged to do by the Qatar Foundation is have NU faculty and students reach out and connect more with the greater community here,” said Prof.Patricia Roth, who is teaching the public relations course.
The QOC and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education cosponsor the Schools Olympic Program, which is in its third year. SOP is an extracurricular program for students five to 18 years old and offers 10 summer Olympic sports. The program plans to add a sport each year until its students – who come from about 240 of Qatar’s 300 public, private and charter institutions – can participate in all of the events held during the Summer Olympics, Roth said.
Students in the public relations class will work in conjunction with the QOC to create a communications plan, Roth said.
“The class is divided into groups of four with each group completing a communications plan,” she said. “What that entails is a communications strategy in recommendation of sponsorship development, merchandising – there will be several different pieces.”
Students are currently working on the marketing portion of the plan: the first of three parts, said Sara Al-Thani, a student in the public relations class.
“We’ve started working on some ideas to get more students – especially girls – and parents involved, because the statistics show that girls are less involved in Qatar Olympic Program,” the Medill sophomore said.
The opportunity to work with the QOC was a welcome surprise for students who signed up to take the class, said Communication sophomore Jassim Al-Romaihi.
“Working with a real-life sports campaign on a national level is certainly something everyone will gain from,” he said. “We’ll meet professionals in the field, look closely at how they work and try to apply what we learned in class out to the real world.”
Unlike other media-related courses at NU-Q, this one focuses on the public relations industry specifically, said Omer Mohammad, another student in the course.
“I’m hoping to get more involved in this particular industry,” the Communication sophomore said. “This class is giving me the opportunity to learn the ethics of PR, the different rules and also how to work in groups.”
The skills obtained through the SOP project could be put to use even before students graduate from NU-Q.
“In our first meeting with some of QOC’s managers, they offered us to continue working with them after this project, or even apply for internships,” Al-Romaihi said. “To be honest, I’m already filling out the papers.”
