Mark Burson began teaching at the University of Mississippi on Jan. 27, 2016, but not before spending 43 years in California.
“My only regret is that it took me so long to discover Oxford, Mississippi,” he said. “I wish I had done it 30 years ago.”
Growing up, Burson had no desire to teach. He wanted to play baseball.
“I went to a private school,” he said, “and I was the first freshman to start all four years. I made all-league those four years as well. So by the time I was a senior, I thought I was really good.”
With no collegiate offers to play ball, Burson decided to walk-on at the University of Southern California. At the time, USC had a freshman team and a junior varsity team that held open tryouts for walk-on athletes.
Burson made the team. “I spent two weeks on that team,” he said, “and I was amazed at how good everybody else was. I soon realized that I had never seen a real curveball before. I had never seen athletes who were so fast and could jump so high.”
Reality began to set in, so he talked with the coach, asking when was the last time that someone from the freshman team made it to JV or varsity? “The coach said, ‘Oh that’s easy. Fred Lynn.’”
Fred Lynn is a former center fielder who had an impressive career in the Major Leagues. Burson said he then realized he had to do something else with his life.
While studying art history, only because he registered late for classes, Burson discovered he really enjoyed it. “It was through art history that I developed this appreciation of just looking at the world, and then being able to tell stories about what I saw,” he said. “And while I didn’t know it at the time, that was the business that I would end up in.”
Burson graduated from USC in 1977 but decided to stick around for graduate school. He earned his master’s degree in public relations in 1979.
If you’re in the public relations business, you’ve probably heard of Harold Burson. This is his father. Harold Burson co-founded Burson-Marsteller in 1952 and is known to some as the grand master of PR. Surprisingly, this had no influence on the younger Burson.
“I had no intention of ever working for my father’s company, and that happened just through serendipity,” he said.
Burson joined the Santa Monica-based firm in 1985, but left in 1997 to run the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for seven years before returning to Burson-Marsteller.
“Through accident of birth, I was born into a PR family,” Burson said. “I didn’t have a choice; it just happened. Because of that, I’ve had a unique ringside seat to the growth of this business.”
Burson said the business that has only been around for about 100 years has changed a lot. If you’re an integrated marketing communications major at the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism and New Media, you may have an idea of this change.
“This business used to be about relationships between the agency and the client,” Burson said, “and when I first started, that’s what really appealed to me because you could develop, not only business relationships with the client but also real friendships.”
Burson feels the industry has moved past these relationships and is now in a more “What can you do for me today?” state of mind. He said the things he loved most about the business has been slowly vanishing and transitioning into what he calls PR or publicity stunts – doing a random act to attract the public’s attention.
“That’s not what I signed up for,” Burson said.
With the nature of the business changing, Burson said he knew he wasn’t going to be able to do the things he really liked doing, so he developed an interest in endurance competitive cycling. After competing in several signature events, Burson thought about starting a company that would help promote those events, but nothing took off.
It wasn’t until a friend invited him to guest lecture a course at USC Annenberg School of Communications, Burson thought: “Wow. This is a pretty cool gig.”
With two of his children out of the house and the third about to graduate high school, Burson began to consider teaching. When his daughter graduated high school, she decided to attend the University of Mississippi because she heard about it through Burson’s father, Harold Burson, who earned his degree from UM.
Burson moved his daughter to Oxford and said, “I just fell in love with Oxford and the University and inquired about how to get a teaching job here in the school of journalism, and what would I teach,” he said. “The subject that I knew most about was how to put together a campaign from start to finish, and then build an environment within that team that would optimize success. So that’s what I teach here and why I’m here.”
Burson doesn’t just teach a class; he makes connections with each student, and he builds relationships that last. UM student Anessa Guess said Burson is a wonderful teacher whose aim is to positively impact student lives.
“In just a short time, he inspired a classroom full of hopefuls to go beyond the normal realm of dreaming and tear down the veil to seek limitless dreaming with a sturdy foundation to start with,” she said. “He is a teacher capable of so many things, and the most important is instilling hope, grounding, diligence, and character in the youth of tomorrow with tools learned from the past.”
“He added his own twist to this insight by producing work relevant to us to get us to see the underlying principle of any objective in a way that we can make sense of it.”
UM student Audrey Ryan said Burson is her favorite instructor. “His enthusiasm for not only IMC but teaching is inspiring,” he said. “He is interested in each individual’s path and wants to learn about every student he teaches.”
“You can tell his passion is teaching just by the way he interacts with his students, and the way he can build a bond with each student, and always have a way to relate to them. He is phenomenal at what he does, and as a person.”
Burson has found his passion, and he teaches students never to give up searching for what you’re passionate about. Take chances. Live life. Do what makes you happy, no matter where it might take you.
By Brandon Hancock. Read more stories like this on OxfordStories.net.
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