Name: Shayna Hansen
Emphasis: Public Relations
Project Summary:
When I was a junior in high school, I was intrigued with the concept of “happiness”. This led me to research various books, articles, stories and TED talks regarding the subject, which is where my love for motivational and influential content blossomed. When I first started taking classes as a Communication Major during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was required to write a feature story on someone who did something that I was interested in. I learned that an Adjunct Faculty professor, Maija-Liisa Adams, was the speaker coach for TEDxRexburg and TEDxIdahoFalls; therefore, I decided to write my feature story on her experiences with TEDx.
Fifteen months later, my connection with Adams led to an invitation to organize TEDxRexburg for the 2022 year. Due to COVID-19, TEDxRexburg had been rescheduled many times. Then, when Adams took on the Lead Organizer role, we decided to finally bring TEDxRexburg back to the stage on March 12, 2022. We had a lot to do in little time, so we got started immediately. I became the project manager of the event and recruited various individuals to help with the project. We started out with only three organizers and now have four main organizers, two interns, five students and a variety of volunteers. We immediately got started on a theme, email and social media marketing campaigns, speaker training and sponsorships. Since Adams has taken over the Lead Organizer role, a majority of past TEDxRexburg content needed to be re-formatted, cleaned out and organized to make the event more sustainable in the future. These tasks alone ended up putting me way over the 50-hour mark for my senior project.
This year’s theme has come to be demonstrated by the execution of the event itself: Resilience: Strong Winds, Strong Roots.