For 20 years, The Carolina Agency has been the student-run public relations and media agency giving College of Information and Communications students real-world experience in a professional setting.
In addition to offering students an internship credit and an authentic work experience in a professional setting, The Carolina Agency also prides itself on its service to community clients.
The agency’s story started two decades ago when Jeffrey Ranta, the program's first advisor, set out to give students a real-world experience and create tangible change in the local community. Ranta enlisted the first client — Leeza’s Care Connection, a nonprofit organization founded by USC alumna Leeza Gibbons, '78 journalism, that supports caregivers, particuarly those tending to older people with memory issues.
After almost a decade of leading and developing the agency, Ranta left USC, and Ernie Grigg took over as the agency’s advisor.
During Grigg’s tenure, the program expanded to offer more services to a growing list of clients and provide a larger number of students from a variety of majors that same real-world experience.
“You’re doing real-world client work, you're working on smaller client teams to carry out deliverables. You get to learn in real time how to collaborate, be a team member and how peer mentorship works. And that's all going to build up those soft skills that you don't get in a classroom environment.”
Today, the agency is overseen by Kelly Davis, a senior instructor of public relations and a fellow of the Public Relations Society of America. While Davis provides oversight and guidance, the agency is largely run by a senior staff of students who manage several teams. Bridget Tracy, a senior public relations student, has been the director of The Carolina Agency for two semesters.
Being a part of the agency has given Tracy invaluable experience and has helped her better define her professional goals.
“In communications, there is such a wide range of avenues you could go down — corporate communications, nonprofits, agencies — it's nice to get a taste of all those different ones right here on campus,” she says.
“You’re doing real-world client work, you're working on smaller client teams to carry out deliverables. You get to learn in real time how to collaborate, be a team member and how peer mentorship works. And that's all going to build up those soft skills that you don't get in a classroom environment.”
Davis says giving back to the community and the university has been a major part of the legacy of the agency, which is affiliated with the national Public Relations Student Society of America. On-campus clients, include Carolina Life, Cocky’s Reading Express and the journalism school’s centennial anniversary celebration and social media campaign.
The Carolina Agency has been working with Cocky’s Reading Express for a little over a year — 2025 was also the 20th anniversary of Cocky’s Reading Express. The anniversary project The Carolina Agency worked on helped raise over $145,000, which was used to buy and distribute 22,200 books to schoolchildren across South Carolina.
Margaret Cook Jackson is the coordinator for Cocky’s Reading Express. She thinks the services The Carolina Agency provided helped raise awareness of the reading program's mission and promote its cause on campus and around the state.
“They've been developing a social media campaign, creating graphics and content to help advertise our fundraising efforts and just increase overall awareness for Cocky's Reading Express,” Jackson says. “They're working on videos for us, and they're working on billboards to put in Russell House. I really trust their ideas and their insights.”
The Carolina Agency also created integrated marketing and public relations strategies for businesses in the Midlands area, including Sistercare and Live Like London.
“The heart and soul of the agency, giving students hands-on experience, has remained through 20 years," Davis says. "The model of the agency has shifted just a bit. But I think the story of what we've created and the opportunities we've given to students who've gone on to do amazing things, both in our profession and outside of our profession, is really the legacy of the agency."