Strategic communication major Kenzie Malasek is celebrating a first-place win. HazingPrevention.org awarded her design first place in their 2020 poster design competition for National Hazing Prevention Week, which will be observed Sept. 20-25. The week-long event provides campuses and communities an opportunity to talk about hazing, why it’s a problem and how to promote prevention of the dangerous behavior.
Malasek’s poster features a football player kneeling under the words, “Power. Use yours to end hazing.” She says she chose the football player concept because she wanted to emphasize that hazing can happen in communities other than Greek life, such as in sports. “I instantly thought of the idea actually because of the theme itself including the phrase ‘change the game.’ I felt like the two concepts would work well together. It was just a matter of finding a powerful enough image to portray the intensity I was hoping the poster could create to support the anti-hazing message.”
As the first place winner, not only will Malasek receive a cash prize, but her poster will be featured and available for download on HazingPrevention.org’s website. “It is a crazy thought that the poster I created could be on display at schools around the nation! Especially with such an important message that will hopefully impact students on all of these campuses and encourage them to view hazing as an issue not only problematic in Greek Life, but in other communities on campus as well,” she says.
This is the third year in a row a strategic communication student at TCU has placed in the contest. Last year, Jessica Spencer’s poster placed second and in 2018, Latoinette Wright’s design earned first place. Each year, students in Broc Sears’ Design class enter their work in the poster competition as one of the projects they work on in class.