UPDATE: UM's concentration in Public Relations was featured in an extensive interview with assistant professor Brooke Fisher Liu and Lecturer Susan Simon-Whyte about the PR student chat challenge win. The interview is found on the blog PR Breakfast Club.

The same blog promises an interview with student winners in the PR student chat challenge on November 2.

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, UM students and faculty beat out over 400 other competitors from 40 other universities to win Twitter's first ever Public Relations Student Chat Challenge. By having the most participants, UM prevailed and the victory yielded more than 200 mentions of UM on Twitter within 24 hours.

The PR Student Chat (called #PRStudChat on Twitter) is organized by moderator Deirdre Breakenridge, four-time author and president of PFS Marketwyse, and host Valerie Simon, Senior Vice President, BurrellesLuce, media monitoring and measurement. The chat connects students directly with PR industry leaders and educators in a new learning environment. The chat is monthly and takes place on Twitter from 12:00-1:00.

Here is a partial list of the UMD participants: http://tweepml.org/PR-Student-Chat-Challenge-Winners/

Approximately 30 UMD students participated, predominately students in both Dr. Brooke Fisher Liu's two COMM350 sections (PR Theory) and Ph.D. student Katie Place's two COMM232 sections (News Editing for PR).

Dr. Liu organized Maryland's team by obtaining the hashtag, or code, used to track and participants in Twitter chats. She also encouraged all PR professors to urge their students to participate.