Dr. Dean Kruckeberg, APR, Fellow PRSA, is a tenured full professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was executive director of the Center for Global Public Relations, a service unit in that department, from 2008 to 2013. From 1983 through 2008, Dr. Kruckeberg was a public relations professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Northern Iowa, serving most of those years as coordinator of the Public Relations Degree Program or of the Mass Communication Division.
In 1969, Dr. Kruckeberg obtained a bachelor of arts degree in English with a journalism minor from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. He also obtained a master of arts degree in journalism in the public relations sequence from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in 1974, as well as a doctor of philosophy degree in mass communications from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in 1985. Dr. Kruckeberg worked as a public relations practitioner at Lutheran General Hospital, a large teaching hospital, and health care center in the Chicago area, for four years and as an extension information specialist for the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Minnesota for four years, as well as part-time during his undergraduate college career. Dr. Kruckeberg was on the faculty as an instructor at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, as an instructor at the University of Iowa, and as an assistant professor and student newspaper advisor at Northwest Missouri State University prior to full professorships at the University of Northern Iowa and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Dr. Kruckeberg has lectured and taught worldwide. A partial list of his international work in the academic realm includes the following more recent activities. In December 2019, he was an invited speaker discussing Russian Strategic Communications Education and Practice for the II Marine Expeditionary Force Strategic Communication Professionals, Camp LeJeune, Jacksonville, NC. In May 2018, he was co-organizer and master mentor at the ICA pre-conference Ph.D. Workshop, in which doctoral students from Russia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Switzerland, and the United States had their doctoral dissertation proposals reviewed and critiqued. In summer 2018, he gave two seminars to faculty and graduate students at Aarhus University, Denmark. In fall 2016, he was a visiting professor at the Russian Federation’s National Research University Higher School of Economics School of Integrated Communications, teaching “Global and International Public Relations/Strategic Communication Inquiry: Current Theory and Practice” to master’s degree students. In summer 2016, Dr. Kruckeberg was a visiting professor teaching “Global and International Public Relations” in the Summer Program in Communication Education (SPICE) at the University of Erfurt, Germany. In August 2015, Dr. Kruckeberg presented a co-authored paper "Public Relations: Critical Perspectives, Edgework and Creative Futures Conference,” at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland.
The author and co-author of many book chapters, articles, and academic papers dealing with international public relations and international public relations ethics, Dr. Kruckeberg is co-author of the book, Public Relations and Community: A Reconstructed Theory, which won the first annual PRIDE Award from the Speech Communication Association Commission on Public Relations (now National Communication Association Public Relations Division). He is also co-author of multiple editions of This Is PR: The Realities of Public Relations, which is a major public relations textbook that has a global English edition and translation editions in several languages worldwide, and of Transparency, Public Relations, and the Mass Media: Combating the Hidden Influences in News Coverage Worldwide (2017). Additionally, he was co-researcher of a two-year study that was released globally in 2003 that ranked 66 countries according to the likelihood that their daily newspaper reporters were seeking or accepting bribery for editorial coverage. This study received global attention in leading news media worldwide as well as in the professional press and marked the beginning of a stream of research about journalists’ propensity toward bribery in these countries.
Dr. Kruckeberg was the recipient of the 2016 NCA Public Relations Division’s “PRIDE Award for Outstanding Contribution/Achievement in Public Relations Education.” In October 2013, he was presented the Atlas Award for Lifetime Achievement in International Public Relations by the Public Relations Society of America at its International Conference in Philadelphia. Dr. Kruckeberg was the 1995 national "Outstanding Educator" of the Public Relations Society of America. He was awarded the Jackson Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Research Prize at the International Conference of the Public Relations Society of America in Salt Lake City in November 2006. This national award and $1,000 prize recognize individual behavioral science researchers whose scholarly work has enhanced the understanding of the concepts and theories that contribute to the effectiveness of public relations practice. He was the 1997 recipient of the Pathfinder Award presented by the Institute for Public Relations, another leading award for public relations research. He also was presented the 1997 State of Iowa Regents Faculty Excellence Award. In fall 1998, Dr. Kruckeberg was awarded the Wartburg College Alumni Citation that recognized his accomplishments as one of the nation’s leading public relations educators.
A distinguished professor with profound international expertise, Dr. Kruckeberg advises C4CS® management and clients with a focus on cross-cultural and international public relations.
