Bonnie Riechert came to the Belmont faculty in fall 2006 from the University of Tennessee, where she taught and served as faculty advisor of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). At Belmont she teaches courses in public relations and communication studies, and in 2008 she became director of the public relations program. She serves as faculty advisor to Belmont’s chapter of PRSSA, which received national PRSSA awards in 2006 and 2007.
Before beginning her career in teaching, Riechert served in leading public relations positions at the University of Tennessee and the University of Georgia, and she worked as an award-winning journalist for newspapers in Georgia and Alabama. She earned degrees in journalism and public relations from the University of Georgia where she minored in social psychology, and she received her doctorate in communications, with a minor in marketing, from the University of Tennessee.
Riechert has authored several book chapters and journal articles on the topics of public relations ethics, communication theory, media framing, health communications, and computer-assisted content analysis. She is active in the Public Relations Society of America and the Society of Professional Journalists, along with numerous academic organizations. She is Accredited in Public Relations (APR), and in 2007 she was inducted into the PRSA College of Fellows.
