10 Top PR Professors: Grunig, Dozier, Toth and More

The top PR professors are the scholars whose research and textbooks still shape how public relations is taught in 2026: James and Larissa Grunig and David Dozier, who led the Excellence Study, Elizabeth Toth, who carried its ideas forward, textbook authors Glen Broom and Dennis Wilcox, and newer leaders in crisis, ethics, dialogue and social media. This guide covers 10 of them, with the work each is best known for.

Updated November 4, 2026. Part of EPR's Higher Education Communications coverage.

Summary

• The Excellence Study, funded by a $400,000 IABC Research Foundation grant awarded in 1985, studied more than 300 organizations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and produced three books.
• James E. Grunig, Larissa A. Grunig, David M. Dozier and Elizabeth L. Toth built and extended the theoretical core of modern PR education.
• Glen M. Broom and Dennis L. Wilcox wrote two of the most widely used introductory textbooks, first published in 1952 and 1986.
• W. Timothy Coombs, Shannon A. Bowen, Maureen Taylor, Michael L. Kent and Karen Freberg lead work on crisis, ethics, dialogue and social media.
• Affiliations listed here are each scholar's primary university tied to their best-known work, so check current faculty pages for up-to-date appointments.

Contents

1. How were these 10 professors chosen?
2. James E. Grunig: What did the Excellence Study change?
3. Larissa A. Grunig: Who helped define excellent communication?
4. David M. Dozier: How did he explain PR roles?
5. Elizabeth L. Toth: Where did Excellence Theory go next?
6. Glen M. Broom: Who wrote the classic PR textbook?
7. Dennis L. Wilcox: Which textbook teaches strategies and tactics?
8. W. Timothy Coombs: How should organizations respond to crises?
9. Shannon A. Bowen: What are PR's ethical duties?
10. Maureen Taylor and Michael L. Kent: What is dialogic PR?
11. Karen Freberg: How does social media change PR practice?
12. What is Excellence Theory?
13. How do the 10 professors compare?
14. What is the timeline of the key works?
15. Frequently asked questions

How were these 10 professors chosen?

EPR selected scholars whose research programs or textbooks continue to anchor U.S. PR courses, organized by contribution rather than rank. The list leans on the Excellence generation, which produced the field's best-known empirical research, and adds the textbook authors and newer scholars who carry its themes into crisis, ethics, dialogue and social media. It is not a ranking, and many other professors do excellent work, including practitioners who teach, such as David Finn, the Ruder Finn co-founder who served as an adjunct professor of public relations at New York University.

James E. Grunig: What did the Excellence Study change?

James E. Grunig of the University of Maryland headed the Excellence Study, the most influential research program in modern public relations. The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation awarded a $400,000 grant in 1985, and the project studied more than 300 organizations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, with qualitative work in 25 of them, according to a scholarly summary of the study.

The research was published in three books, including Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations (2002). Grunig's earlier textbook with Todd Hunt, Managing Public Relations (1984), introduced the four models of PR practice that students still learn.

Larissa A. Grunig: Who helped define excellent communication?

Larissa A. Grunig, also of the University of Maryland, was a co-author of the 2002 Excellence synthesis and a core member of the research team. The project added theories of communicator roles and of gender and diversity to the field's thinking, and Larissa Grunig's work on women in the profession helped put those questions on the research agenda.

David M. Dozier: How did he explain PR roles?

David M. Dozier of San Diego State University was a co-author of the Excellence books, including the 1995 Manager's Guide to Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management. His research on the roles of public relations practitioners, built on earlier work by Glen Broom, helped explain why some communicators operate as managers and others as technicians, a distinction that still shapes how PR teams are organized.

Elizabeth L. Toth: Where did Excellence Theory go next?

Elizabeth L. Toth, also at the University of Maryland, extended the Excellence tradition into questions of gender, diversity and the discipline's future. She edited The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management (2007) and co-wrote Women in Public Relations (2001) with Larissa Grunig and Linda Childers Hon. For students, her work is the bridge between the Excellence era and later research.

Glen M. Broom: Who wrote the classic PR textbook?

Glen M. Broom of San Diego State University is a co-author, with Scott Cutlip and Allen Center, of Effective Public Relations, a foundational textbook first published in 1952 and revised many times since. Broom also did early research on practitioner roles with Smith, which fed directly into Dozier's later work.

Dennis L. Wilcox: Which textbook teaches strategies and tactics?

Dennis L. Wilcox of San Jose State University is the lead author of Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, first published in 1986 and widely used in U.S. courses. Together with the Cutlip, Center and Broom volume, it forms the two-textbook backbone of many introductory PR classes.

W. Timothy Coombs: How should organizations respond to crises?

W. Timothy Coombs of Texas A&M University developed Situational Crisis Communication Theory, a framework that matches an organization's response to the type of crisis and the responsibility the public assigns. His work is a standard reference in crisis communication courses and a useful companion to EPR's crisis PR coverage.

Shannon A. Bowen: What are PR's ethical duties?

Shannon A. Bowen of the University of South Carolina is a leading scholar on ethics in public relations, with research on how ethical principles guide decision-making inside communication functions. Her work answers the question the field keeps returning to: how should advisers counsel leaders when the right answer is not the easy one?

Maureen Taylor and Michael L. Kent: What is dialogic PR?

Maureen Taylor and Michael L. Kent developed the dialogic theory of public relations, which asks how organizations and publics can engage in genuine two-way conversation rather than one-way information transfer. Their framework became a common lens for studying social media and online engagement.

Karen Freberg: How does social media change PR practice?

Karen Freberg of the University of Louisville wrote Social Media for Strategic Communication, a textbook that connects research with day-to-day practice on social platforms. She represents a model the discipline will need more of: scholars who work close to practitioners as the tools keep changing.

What is Excellence Theory?

Excellence Theory is the body of findings from the IABC-funded Excellence Study, which explains how public relations contributes to organizational effectiveness as a management function. The Grunigs and Dozier wrote that its major premise is that communication has value to an organization because it helps build good long-term relationships with strategic publics, according to a SAGE encyclopedia entry.

The study resulted in three books: James E. Grunig's 1992 Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, the 1995 Manager's Guide by Dozier, Larissa Grunig and James Grunig, and the 2002 synthesis volume. Its sample included corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and associations. Among its conclusions, the two-way symmetrical model, which emphasizes dialogue, is generally indicative of excellence, and organizations with higher levels of activism had higher levels of successful public relations.

How do the 10 professors compare?

What is the timeline of the key works?

For more on where to study, see EPR's guide to the best PR and communications schools in 2026, the profile of Newhouse PR faculty, the look at San Diego State's Broom Center and the University GEO Gap analysis. For the practitioners who shaped the field, read EPR's In Memoriam profile of David Finn.