An instructor and co-director of the Undergraduate Advising Program in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Tracy R. Sims has B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Mississippi State University. Sims teaches APR 322 Advertising Copywriting, APR 332 Public Relations Writing and APR 415 Online Magazine Writing and Editing: Advanced PR Writing. She has also taught APR 424 Advertising Campaigns and APR 433 Public Relations Campaigns. Before joining the APR faculty full time in August 2004, Sims was an adjunct instructor for the department for two years and taught composition and American literature survey courses for eight years at both The University of Alabama and Mississippi State University.

A former interim editor and editorial consultant for the Alabama Alumni Magazine, Sims now serves as proofreader for the magazine, which has garnered numerous awards, most recently a Silver Award in the 2007 Millennium Awards Competition and an Award of Excellence in the 2007 APEX Awards for the Winter 2006 issue. She also serves as a proofreader for the Alabama Alumni Association’s annual donor report.

Sims was the 2005–06 advisor to The University of Alabama’s Ad Team, a group of the University’s top students from advertising, public relations, telecommunication and film, and related disciplines. Each year’s Ad Team works to develop a complete integrated marketing communications campaign for submission to district and national competitions sponsored by the American Advertising Federation.

As a former editor/writer and an editorial director of University Relations’ Marketing Communications office at The University of Alabama, Sims was the managing editor of the UA undergraduate catalog, an editor of the UA graduate catalog, and an editor/writer of numerous UA student-recruitment and alumni/donor publications. Her work as editor/writer of the University’s 2003 annual report, For All Generations to Come, garnered a Certificate of Merit from the Public Relations Council of Alabama, and she jointly received Citations of Excellence from the Tuscaloosa Advertising Federation for the Admissions Viewbook and K–12 Mailer; a Grand Award from CASE District III for New Student Orientation materials; and a Special Merit from CASE District III for College of Engineering recruitment materials.

Tracy Sims