SUZETTE HEIMAN, APR, is a professor in strategic communication and director of planning and communications for the Missouri School of Journalism. In this position she spearheaded the 2008 centennial/dedication celebration for the School and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, a three-day event that attracted more than 2,500 alumni, students, faculty and others. She is the editor of the commemorative book called The J-School, The First Hundred Years of the World’s First School of Journalism, published in 2010. Heiman oversees the School’s publications, marketing, media-relations efforts and Web site, which she updated in 2003, 2005 and 2010.

Heiman teaches courses in the strategic communication area, including an introduction to public relations, strategic and public relations writing as well as management.

Heiman is a co-author of one of the leading introductory textbooks on public relations, Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice, published by McGraw-Hill. Her chapters cover community relations, consumer relations and marketing, corporate communication and nonprofit public relations.

As an active member of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) for more than 20 years, Heiman has held key leadership positions within the organization, including serving as chair of the Centennial Committee (2009-2012); on the Strategic Planning Implementation Committee (2009-2011); one of seven selected to serve on the Strategic Planning Design Team (2007-2008); chair of the Council of Divisions; and head of the advertising division. She is one of about six people to serve on the first national Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program’s appellate review panel, a division of the National Advertising Review Council. She served as a public member of the National Advertising Review Council for six years.

Heiman’s earliest link to the School was as a student; she earned a bachelor’s degree here in 1973. Three years later she finished her master’s degree in English education at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. Before returning to the School as a faculty member in 1989, a series of industry positions advanced her expertise in advertising and public relations management, marketing communications, media relations and employee communications.