Each spring semester brings cold weather and new classes for college students. While this new school year still brings cold temperatures and new school schedules, this spring semester proposes something new for Rowan University students — a class all about fashion. For the first time in the school’s history, Rowan University is offering students of all majors a new class, Fashion PR. 

According to flyers plastered across buildings on Rowan’s Glassboro campus, students who take the fashion course will “learn about the exciting world of fashion PR including branding, licensing, buying, planning, and merchandising activities. Featuring industry guest speakers and hands-on experience.”

By attending the class, students can expect to learn a plethora of public relations methods, all relating to the fashion industry.

“We’re going to be looking at different ways public relations impacts the fashion industry. So whether that’s the production of goods, like clothing, accessories, cosmetics, or it’s the selling of them, like the merchandising side of it…to the consumption side of it…So kind of taking three different looks of it over the course of the semester,” said Fashion PR professor Allison Novak. 

This course may be appealing to PR majors, but this course welcomes students of all majors and years to attend and learn more about the fashion world. 

“You could be a PR major, and I think get a lot out of it because you will be applying concepts, but you can also just really be any major…It is kind of designed to be almost a survey course, which covers a lot of topics, in just a little bit of detail, and if you love it, you can become a PR major and you can get much more in-depth in each one of those areas,” said Novak. 

Students in the classes won’t just be learning from Novak but will be learning and observing people working directly in the field of fashion. 

“We have someone coming who does all of the visual merchandising, specifically focusing on video for Anthropology brands, so that includes Urban Outfitters, Terrain, Anthropology, and Free People,” said Novak. 

Students typically attend a college or university to help learn the ropes of their dream careers and to help set themselves up for future job opportunities. This public relations class is just one of many classes that help students dip their toes into the world of public relations and set them up for future career opportunities. 

“The world of fashion PR is expanding really rapidly…and we’re in such a great region for these jobs, so it is really amazing that students are interested in this because there is a job at the end of this, like a real career path if they want it,” said Novak.

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