Ethics Month: What You Need to Know
September is Ethics Month! At PRSSA, we celebrate this special time as an opportunity to reflect on how we can continue growing as students and future public relations professionals. We encourage every student to take a moment to explore the materials and resources available to help us better understand ethics and the responsibility we carry as members of this profession. Every member of our community proudly wears the PRSSA badge and represents what our organization stands for, so we want to make sure you have the resources and information you need to make responsible decisions.
This year, we wanted to do things a little differently and make Ethics Month more dynamic and interactive. In collaboration with PRSA’s Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS), we created a special “What Would You Do?” series based on real-life cases and scenarios where you’ll have the opportunity to test your ethical decision-making skills. We also invited students from different schools to work together on content for our social media throughout the month. Our goal is simple: to show that ethics is for everyone, and that everyone can practice it.
But we don’t want you to only think about ethics, we want you to participate and practice it in every way you can. Keep an eye on PRSSA’s social media throughout September, where you’ll find all the content we’ve specially prepared for you, including scenarios, student perspectives, resources and opportunities to learn more.
As part of Ethics Month, I’ll also have the opportunity to represent PRSSA as a panelist in PRSA Oregon’s webinar, “AI and the Future of Ethical PR: Perspectives Across the Profession.” I’ll be joining PR professionals in a conversation about AI, ethics and the future of our profession, while bringing a student perspective to the discussion. I’m especially excited about this opportunity because it reflects something we want to emphasize throughout the month: students should also have a voice in the ethical conversations shaping the future of public relations.
That same idea is also coming to Progressions. We invited some of the students participating in this year’s Ethics Month initiative to share their own perspectives on AI and ethical responsibility. Hearing directly from students about how they are navigating these new tools and challenges gives us the opportunity to learn from one another and bring more student voices into conversations about where our profession is going.
Ethics Month is ultimately about more than knowing what the rules say. It’s about learning how to apply them, asking questions and developing the judgment we’ll need throughout our careers. This September, I encourage you to explore the resources available to you, join the conversation and, most importantly, ask yourself a simple question when making a decision: “Is what I’m doing right?”
Magali Corrales is a public relations student at Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and serves as the 2026–2027 Vice President of Professional Standards for PRSSA. In her role, she supports Student-Run Firms and works to promote ethics and professional standards among students and emerging PR professionals. She is passionate about international communication, ethical leadership and the future of the public relations profession.
