UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Two Penn State participants earned spots among five national finalists to be selected PRWeek Outstanding Student of the Year 2023 — a highly competitive distinction with the overall winner to be named in mid-March.
Senior advertising/public relations major Maryrose Finn and recent graduate Samantha Preza became the latest Penn State students selected for the program. Penn State has had nine such honorees since 2020.
Finn, from Howell, New Jersey, has complemented her classroom success with cocurricular leadership and participation experiences as well as several internships. She serves as director of campaign strategy for the Public Relations Student Society of America on campus and was a media relations chair for Penn State Homecoming. She has completed internships with Hunter PR, Push the Envelope Public Relations, and Kalab LLC. She’s on track to graduate in May.
Preza, from Staten Island, New York, found success inside the classroom and beyond as well. She has completed public relations internships with DADA Goldberg, BPCM, and Yardè Skincare. She also started her own business and served as an ambassador for Tallyshot. She earned her bachelor’s degree in December.
The two were introduced to PRWeek the challenge midway last fall as part of a class. The competition’s prompt asked students to create a civil discourse campaign for Meta.
The creative brief emphasized the importance of getting input from people of varying backgrounds and emphasizing the difference between free speech, misinformation and disinformation. The goal was to demonstrate that Meta was doing everything they could to combat hate speech while promoting respectful, civil speech on posts, messages and comment sections across both Facebook and Instagram.
The overall winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and be rewarded with a trip to the annual PRWeek Awards in New York in March 2023. One runner-up will also win a trip to the PRWeek Awards.
“This campaign was particularly challenging. Tackling toxic social media environments is no small task, and the students really developed keen insights and creative strategies to address this important issue,” said Tara Wyckoff, an associate teaching professor of advertising/public relations in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. “They had to consider reputational management issues that surround Meta, while preparing their client for increased polarizing discourse across their platforms as we head into the 2024 election season.
“Both campaigns leveraged influencers and earned media. I’m proud of the careful way they approached research, and I’m always impressed at how creative they are.”
Penn State’s recent national finalists include Colton Breon (2022), Margaret Pfeifle (2022), Sydney Haykel (2021), Jenna Silverblatt (2021), and Elise Bingaman (2020). Morgan Sheedy and Yunjing Zhang were honored as semifinalists in 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Two Penn State participants have been named PR Student of the Year — Robert Corrado in 2008 and Tara Burnham in 2006.