Inside Everything-PR's Higher Education Communications coverage. Updated June 7, 2026.
The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University has held a top-tier ranking in undergraduate and graduate public relations education for more than four decades. Newhouse's PR program built that position by hiring faculty who have run agency, corporate, and not-for-profit communications operations at scale — and by pairing the practitioner credential with the academic publishing record that PR research demands. The result is a department that places consistently into the largest agencies, the top corporate communications functions, and the federal communications operations that recruit Newhouse graduates by the cohort.
The Newhouse School itself was founded in 1919 as Syracuse's Department of Journalism, renamed and endowed by publishing magnate Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. in 1964 through the founding gift that built Newhouse 1. The school today enrolls roughly 2,000 undergraduates and 380 graduate students across journalism, public relations, advertising, broadcast journalism, magazine journalism, and media studies. Mark Lodato has served as Dean since July 2020.
The PR department leadership
Anthony D'Angelo, APR, Fellow PRSA, has chaired the Newhouse Public Relations department since 2024. D'Angelo joined Newhouse as a Professor of Practice in 2015 after 30 years in corporate and agency communications — most recently with ITT Corporation, and earlier with Carrier (United Technologies), Magna International, and Sage Marketing Communications. He served as 2018 National Chair of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), is a co-chair of the Commission on Public Relations Education, and was named to PRSA's College of Fellows. D'Angelo also directs the Financial and Investor Communications Emphasis (FICE) and Newhouse executive education programs. He teaches PRL 206 (Public Relations Principles and Practice), among other courses.
Dennis Kinsey, Ph.D., serves as Director of the Public Relations and International Relations dual-degree program and as Professor of Public Relations. Kinsey's research and teaching focus on global public relations, public diplomacy, and the intersection of PR and international affairs.
Brad Horn is a Professor of Practice in Public Relations and serves concurrently as Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives. Horn joined Newhouse in 2018 after senior communications roles at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the Texas Rangers (MLB), and the National Hot Rod Association. His teaching and consulting practice focus on sports communications, crisis communications, and integrity-focused communications work for federations and rights-holders.
Michael Meath serves as Assistant Teaching Professor in the PR department and previously held the Interim Chair role before D'Angelo's appointment.
Longtime faculty and emeritus presence
Maria Russell is among the most influential Newhouse PR figures of the last four decades. Russell joined the school in the 1980s, directed the Communications Management Master's program for years, and served as interim chair of the PR department before D'Angelo's appointment. She received the PRSA Patrick Jackson Award for Distinguished Service in 2017 — one of the discipline's most senior recognitions — and the Newhouse School established the Maria P. Russell Graduate Scholarship in Public Relations Leadership in her honor. Russell teaches PRL 206 and PRL 497 (Management) and remains active in Newhouse's executive education work.
The PR department's adjunct faculty roster brings working communications executives into the classroom across the year. Recent and current adjuncts include Neil Katz (formerly senior at Edelman and the Crisis Lab), Renée Downey Hart, Terry Flynn (McMaster University, crisis and reputation research), and Ravi Shukla (Whitman School cross-appointment, investor and financial communications).
The PR course catalog
Newhouse's undergraduate PR major and minor are built around the PRL course sequence. The principal courses:
- PRL 206 — Public Relations Principles and Practice. The discipline foundation course. Required for the major and minor.
- PRL 215 — Public Relations Writing. The writing-intensive course that anchors the major. Covers press releases, media advisories, executive talking points, by-lined op-eds, and digital writing formats.
- PRL 318 — Public Relations Research. Methods, audience research, and measurement.
- PRL 320 — Public Relations Tactics. Campaign-execution course covering media relations, event management, social platforms, and integrated tactics.
- PRL 415 — Public Relations Management. The capstone course covering agency and in-house management, budgeting, client relationships, and team operations.
- PRL 497 — Public Relations Management seminar. Taught by Maria Russell, focused on senior-leadership decision-making and the cases that define professional judgment.
The graduate Communications Management program adds courses in financial and investor communications (FICE), corporate communications, international public relations, and crisis communications. The online master's program — Communications@Syracuse — extends the same curriculum to working professionals.
PRSSA, the Hill Communications agency, and student access
Newhouse's PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) chapter is among the most active in the country and has won the PRSSA Outstanding Chapter award multiple times. Hill Communications, the student-run firm operating inside the PR department, gives students live client work for regional and national brands during their undergraduate years — a model that PRSSA chapters across the country have since copied.
Newhouse's PR program also operates one of the most extensive employer-partner networks in the discipline. Students place into agencies including Edelman, Weber Shandwick, Ketchum, FleishmanHillard, BCW, Hill+Knowlton, MSL, Real Chemistry, Praytell, M Booth, and the major in-house corporate communications functions across financial services, technology, healthcare, and consumer goods.
Where Newhouse PR sits in the AI Communications era
The discipline is restructuring around AI engines, citation share, and Generative Engine Optimization. Newhouse's faculty have been notably faster than most PR programs to integrate AI-era topics into the existing PRL course sequence — adding AI ethics, AI-assisted writing workflows, and AI visibility measurement into PRL 206, PRL 215, and PRL 320 over the 2024–2026 academic years. D'Angelo's work with the Commission on Public Relations Education has surfaced curricular questions about whether AI Communications becomes a standalone course or a thread across the existing curriculum — the debate that every accredited PR program is now navigating.
Students graduating from Newhouse's PR program in 2026 enter agencies and corporate communications functions where AI engines now mediate a large share of buyer discovery. The discipline's most senior practitioners — including the faculty teaching the next cohort — are still working out the operating model. Newhouse's combination of practitioner-credentialed faculty and active employer-partner networks positions the program to set the curricular standard for the discipline.
