Working Professional Brings Real World to Classroom
By Mary Kay Quinlan
News-editorial faculty
When Amy Struthers walks into her promotional writing or advertising media strategy classes, she brings an array of her own strategies honed from experience as a French teacher, translator at the Grand Canyon and account rep for IBM.
The advertising lecturer who joined the faculty in 2003 translated her undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, French and comparative literature into a career in sales, advertising management and program administration after an initial career teaching French at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1977 to 1987.
"I was pretty convinced after teaching undergraduates French that I knew how to sell," Struthers said. "It's all about persuasion."
The Seward native took an early foray out of the college classroom in the late 1970s, when she spent a year as the first translator the National Park Service hired to work at the Grand Canyon, a must-see stop for French tourists visiting the United States.
Assigned to the park's backcountry office, Struthers tried to explain to visiting French women that they really ought not try to hike to the bottom of the canyon wearing stiletto heels. And could they please take their litter out with them instead of leaving it along the trail?
Although French and English are the only languages she speaks, park staff called on Struthers whenever they needed help communicating with any foreign visitors, like those suffering medical emergencies who had to be plucked from the canyon floor by helicopter.
Particularly challenging, she recalled, was trying to find a common language in which to communicate with an Austrian visitor suffering from heat stroke.
The Grand Canyon job was fun, despite the frustrations, Struthers said. But she turned down a second park service assignment at the Salem Witch Museum in Boston and returned to UNL to teach. By 1987, Struthers said, she wanted to try something new and learn more about computer technology, so she went to work in marketing and sales for IBM.
In addition to learning about new technology, she also learned about corporate culture and met lots of interesting people. It was her first taste of a corporate dress code and the realization that "customers could be very rude."
After about six years, IBM restructured, substantially trimming the size of its Lincoln staff. Struthers didn't want to relocate. But she took her IBM sales and marketing experiences back to UNL, becoming the first professional advertising manager for the Daily Nebraskan.
Struthers, who earned her B.A. with high distinction at UNL in 1976 and her M.A. in 1979, was delighted to be back on campus. She was a DN reporter and interned at the Fort Worth Star Telegram during her undergraduate years and saw the ad manager job as a chance to combine her love for the campus community with her love for newspapers and sales.
She managed up to 20 student workers and a budget of more than $800,000 and was credited with turning around a 10-year decline in advertising sales.
After leaving the DN, Struthers put her marketing and technology skills to work as assistant director of the Artist Diversity Residency Program, which brought artists from ethnically diverse backgrounds to UNL to work with students and faculty and with public schools across the state.
Funds for the program were cut in 1999, so Struthers took a position doing promotion, marketing, advertising and student services for UNL's distance education programs.
She connected with the CoJMC through its distance education program and joined the advertising faculty in January 2003. She is also working on a Ph.D. in instructional technology.
Struthers' circuitous route from teaching French to explaining the finer points of retail advertising and sales enables her to bring the professional working world into the classroom, said Donna Martin, a 1994 advertising graduate who is an account executive for Lamar Outdoor Advertising in Lincoln.
Martin, who was one of the student workers Struthers supervised at the DN, said Struthers' "colorful work background" allows her to go beyond the textbooks in teaching students about the world of advertising.
"She always strives to bring the professional work world into the classroom," Martin said, adding that Struthers' students "just think the world of her."
And it's no wonder.
"One of the most wonderful things about Amy is her ongoing enthusiasm and passion for everything she does," Martin said.
