Murrow Ambassadors are a small group of students who represent the school to a wide range of audiences.
Sara Stout, Murrow Center for Student Success associate dean of student affairs, said these audiences include prospective students and their families, as well as alumni and faculty at certain events.
The Murrow Ambassador program is important when high school students are looking at colleges. They typically relate better to another student already in the program, Stout said.
“The ambassadors provide that current student perspective. A prospective student who comes to tour with their parent is going to have lots of questions,” she said. “I can answer those questions, but sometimes it’s better coming from another student because they can see themselves in that student’s situation.”
Alongside the benefits for potential Murrow students, the program allows the ambassadors to sharpen their leadership and presentation skills, as well as giving them the opportunity to network with faculty, students and staff and reflect on their experience as students, she says.
Hannah Arneson, junior public relations major, said she decided to become a Murrow Ambassador after she went on a spring break trip to New York with Stout, who promoted the program as great experience to put on a resume.
“She marketed it as an activity to meet other people and be a part of the college,” Arneson said. “I just wanted to participate because in my last two years, I didn’t.”
Being a Murrow Ambassador allows her to show other Murrow students the outreach between professors and students, she said.
“I love the professors. They really make it worth pursuing this degree,” she said. “I know in a lot of other colleges, people don’t know their professors really well, so getting to have the small professor to student ratio has been nice.”
The Murrow Ambassador program has benefited Arneson as well because it has pushed her out of her comfort zone by allowing her to give tours and talk about Murrow in its best light.
“In PR, you want to put people in their best light, so that kind of goes hand in hand, and [I’m] developing the skills now so that when I get in the workplace, it’ll be easier,” she said.
Gunner Miller, senior broadcast news major, said he got involved as a Murrow Ambassador because a couple of ambassadors from last year inspired him, and he looked up to them.
“They told me how great of a program Murrow Ambassadors is, and it made me want to show pride in the college I’m in and help students that are looking into the same college,” he said.
Miller said now that he is an ambassador, he feels as though he has made a difference with the students he has interacted with.
Like Arneson, Miller said the program pushes him out of his comfort zone and allows him to build his communication skills.
“It’s given me a lot of good friends that I probably wouldn’t have met without the program,” he said. “The successful part of it is making friends within ambassadors that I hope to cherish for a lifetime.”