From the Nominator

"With the state of Washington in lockdown and our students learning remotely from home, we thought outside the box and created a video that depended primarily on student user-generated content that capitalized on a major trend at the time.   

We used the TikTok inspired "Pass the Brush" challenge to create a holiday video that recognized the challenges and celebrated the triumphs at WSU in 2020.  Students from WSU campuses across the state answered our social media call out to participate. Each were mailed a holiday light bulb and were instructed to record themselves "catching" the light from above, "illuminating" the light in some fashion, and then "dropping" the light to the imaginary person below. Using our mascot as the opening catalyst and our university president and first lady as the ending catalyst, our video team edited the student videos in between to produce a singular video that depicted all participants passing a holiday light bulb from one person to the next.  

The narration, recorded by our president, thanked all Cougs for persevering throughout 2020 and the efforts made to "illuminate Washington State University, the state, and the world." As the narration concluded, our first lady caught the light and handed it to our president who placed it into an empty spot on a non-illuminated string of lights. With a snap of the fingers the string of lights illuminated.  

The video generated thousands of views and received acclaim for its creativity and its incorporation of a popular trend."

From the Judges

The use of light bulb is not only festive, but also signifies hope. It was an interesting take on the often-used "illuminate"/turn on lights theme, but different and risky with using a TikTok trend. Loved how they engaged students in creative ways. They also had clear, measurable goals, so they could measure success.