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The Happy Accident: Building Resilience in the Classroom When Things Don't Go as Planned�

Dr. Shelley Wigley�University of Texas at Arlington

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Agenda

The Context (Anticipate)

The Problem (Navigate)

The Solution (Mitigate)

Questions

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The Context (Anticipate)

PR Campaigns Capstone Course

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22 students enrolled, agency structure, co-taught

Entire semester involves hands-on work for a client(s)

Crises often involve personal conflicts between students

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The Client Problem to be Addressed?

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The Campaign in Action

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The Crisis: �Nonprofit client operating illegally; discovered halfway through the semester.

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The Problem (Navigate)

Students had already created and published content for the client

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Students held an event selling vintage clothes & taking donations

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Students were serving as the face of the organization

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The organization was still promoting itself as a nonprofit

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The Problem (More Navigation)

Disclosure/transparency - telling students

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Class discussion where we decided how to proceed

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Discussion was thoughtfully guided (ethics, legalities, reputation)

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What to do in this situation? How do we salvage the semester?

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I put on my crisis communication hat and approached the situation just like I would an organizational crisis.

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The Solution (Mitigation)

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• Considered who was most impacted by the crisis – students - and apologized; no blame; corrective action.
• All social content was downloaded, saved, and scrubbed immediately
• Partnership severed immediately
• Gave students tools - created a PowerPoint and lesson explaining how they can talk about this experience in job interviews, on resumes, etc.

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Crisis �Comm �101

By Shelley Wigley, Ph.D.

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What is the Crisis?

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Who is Most Impacted by the Crisis?

Students in the PR Campaigns class

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How to Deal with Those Impacted by the Crisis?

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Crisis Comm 101 Steps

• Put the people most impacted by the crisis first

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• Be transparent and truthful

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• Take steps to minimize harm/risk
• Downloaded created content with faces on it
• Downloaded all digital analytics
• Canceled upcoming events
• Documented facts of the situation
• Went on record terminating the partnership

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Why We Did Not Contact

• The Media
• In this situation, a strategic decision was made not to further amplify the situation.
• What would it have accomplished?
• Donors
• Most people received something in return (clothing items)
• Rounded up/gave not expecting a tax write-off at event
• No contact information or record/knowledge of who gave how much
• No donors on North Texas Giving Day b/c org was taken down

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Discussing This Experience in Interviews

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• Demonstrates your maturity, accountability, ethics, and character
• Your flexibility, how you handle challenges, overcome obstacles
• You should be PROUD of the work you did for the “client”; there will be bad clients in real life, just like there are bad people, sadly.
• You can only control how you react to a crisis. You cannot control the other person, organization, etc.
• When you knew better, you did better.

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More Tips for Job Interviews

• (Upholding ethics in practice) “I learned how to uphold transparency and protect audience trust even when a client behaves unethically.”
• (Summing it up) “In the end, I walked away with both portfolio-ready campaign assets and a much stronger sense of ethical responsibility, crisis communication strategies, and risk assessment in client partnerships.”
• PR isn’t just about promoting clients - it’s about protecting audiences and their trust.
• Still include deliverables in your portfolio; just anonymize the client if possible

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Possible Q & A

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• Q: Tell me about a challenge you faced while working with a client.�
• A: My team partnered with a client who initially represented himself as a nonprofit. Later, we discovered the organization wasn’t legally registered as one. That required us to quickly shift from traditional campaign work to ethical decision-making and stakeholder protection. I helped reassess messaging, and we made recommendations that prioritized transparency and audience trust. It taught me how to navigate real-world ethical complications professionally.�
• Q: How do you handle unexpected situations when working on a campaign?

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• A: I’ve learned that not all clients present complete or accurate information, so verifying claims matters. When our team discovered a discrepancy in a client’s nonprofit status, we paused outreach, documented concerns, and focused on stakeholder impact. I now take a "trust but verify" approach - moving forward with compassion but also due diligence. It strengthened my risk assessment skills.�

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More Q & A

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• Q: What did you learn from this experience that you would apply in a professional PR role?�
• A: That PR isn't just promotion; it's responsibility. I learned how ethics and public trust are interconnected. I would now incorporate early-stage vetting, clearer client intake questions, and transparency frameworks to prevent ethical harm. It made me more proactive and prepared for agency or nonprofit communications.�
• Q: How would you talk to stakeholders if a client is not being transparent?

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• A: You don’t call out the client publicly - you protect the audience. I would shift messaging to focus on the cause or community impact rather than the organization itself, and I would recommend the client correct the misrepresentation before further campaigns. The goal is to preserve public trust without escalating harm.

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Lessons Learned

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More Lessons Learned

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• Give students the tools they need to explain how they overcame obstacles, challenges

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• Take the opportunity to expand students’ learning through new applicable concepts (ex., crisis communication)�
• Always put those most impacted first (in this case, students), but also potential donors, supporters�
• The best learning experiences occur when things do not go as planned and obstacles must be overcome; make sure students understand this

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Questions?

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