A Rewarding Career in Public Relations

Given the success of Lander's nursing and health care management programs, Self Regional Healthcare is home to numerous Lander University alumni, many of whom have found exciting, long-term careers. But for Lander alumna Mary Lyle Cathcart, it was her mass communications degree that led her to the marketing department at Self Regional.

Cathcart, who graduated from Lander University in 2013, serves as Self Regional Healthcare's communications coordinator and puts her public relations emphasis to use "on a daily basis," she said. "You can find me managing various print projects requested by our service lines, like brochures, billboards, announcements and campaigns."

Cathcart also manages Self Regional's social media accounts, schedules photo shoots and crafts news releases for her department. She even puts her experience with Lander's XLR to use by recording voice overs for Self's radio and television ads. "We stay very busy," she said.

And like her fellow alumni, Cathcart, too, says it was the hands-on approach of Lander's mass communications program that best prepared her for her career. "Every professor I had was an excellent communicator, and they gave me the tools to manage myself and hold the reins of my own future," she said. "They laid the groundwork and helped me be successful, and overall, a better communicator in all aspects of life, both personally and professionally."

Now that she is working in the field, those communications skills she learned while at Lander have become second nature to her, empowering her to be a team player and natural leader in the workforce. "I love everything about my job," said Cathcart. "I love thinking of my job as part of a whole; that what I'm doing will be seen by someone who may receive care, or have his or her life changed at our hospital. It's rewarding."

This story is featured in the Fall 2019 edition of Lander Magazine. Read more at www.lander.edu/magazine.