AD EXEC NORMA HANSON ENDOWS SCHOLARSHIP


The Department of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Alabama is pleased to announce the establishment of The Norma Saliba Hanson Endowed Scholarship in the College of Communication and Information Sciences to support academic excellence at UA. Hanson, a UA alumna from Dothan, Ala., is nationally recognized for her contributions to advertising in the Southeast.

“My valuable years at the University of Alabama gave me the foundation for a successful advertising career, and I am constantly supporting and encouraging the value of ethical communications,” said Hanson. “So it is with pride and appreciation that this scholarship is given.”

Hanson, founder, owner and operator of the marketing and advertising agency Norma Hanson & Associates, received a bachelor of arts in journalism from the College of Arts and Sciences at UA in 1957. She launched her advertising career as an executive secretary at Atlanta’s Tucker Wayne and Company, now 22squared Inc., and soon was promoted to assistant account executive and, later, broadcast buyer. She then became a consultant for Design Associates and co-founded in 1980 the advertising and design firm, SlaughterHanson, with offices in Dothan and Birmingham, before starting up her own firm in 2005.

Hanson was named as one of AdWeek magazine’s 1988 Six Southeast Women to Watch and as one of Business Alabama’s 1991 Women Who Mean Business. In 2004 she received the Southeast Alabama Advertising Federation’s Advertising Pioneer Award and in 2007 the UA College of Communication and Information Sciences’ Outstanding Alumni Award in Advertising and Public Relations. In 2009, Hanson was inducted into the College’s Hall of Fame.

Applications for the Hanson Scholarship will be available this fall for the 2011-12 academic year through UA’s current undergraduate scholarship applications page. According to the endowment specifications, priority will be given to those applicants who graduated from high schools in the state of Alabama and are enrolled in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, who are pursuing degrees in advertising, and who demonstrate exceptional promise as advertising professionals.

Consistently ranked among the best in the nation, the Department of Advertising and Public Relations helps to prepare students to develop ethically sound approaches to research-driven strategic communications. With an emphasis on service learning and “real world” client interactions, A&PR faculty engaged more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students in the 2009-2010 academic year. These students have produced award-winning work at the local, regional and national levels and A&PR faculty have received top awards in teaching and research. The Department is home to The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations and Platform Magazine.