A WSU Ph.D. candidate for criminal justice and criminology recently won an award for her outreach and dedication on teaching bystanders violence prevention.

Ph.D. candidate Amber Morczek was recently awarded the Karen P. DePauw Leadership Award, a $1,500 scholarship to further her research.

The award is presented to a graduate student who demonstrates exceptional leadership in a variety of capacities, said Morczek’s nominator, a WSU criminal justice professor Faith Lutze.

“She has demonstrated incredible leadership, especially in the area of violence prevention and changing the culture at Washington State University to be a safer place for students,” Lutze said.

Morczek said she is the first Coug recipient of the DePauw Award.

In addition to her research, Morczek is currently a certified facilitator for the Green Dot program, which is a program dedicated to increasing bystander responses to gender-based violence, said Nikki Finnestead, the Green Dot violence prevention coordinator.

As a Green Dot leader, Morczek talks to students about the role they play in recognizing violence and steps to prevent it, Finnestead said. She answers questions students may not have had the opportunity to discuss before.

“The ability to relay information about a topic as socially taboo as sexual violence is a skill that very few people can achieve,” Finnestead said. “Amber’s ability to deliver the content we talk about in a professional but still approachable manner rivals that of educators who have been in the violence prevention field for years.”

Morczek said perpetration of violent crimes was her original focus, but after further research she felt there was not enough focus on victims.

“I started to get involved with violence prevention programs and really seeing how much of an issue (it is)…especially on a college campus,” Morczek said. “I wanted to not only change the culture but also impact students who may go through it or have gone through it. I wanted to make a difference in their lives and raise awareness.”

Morczek speaks at Alive! sessions, and said it is important to speak to students before they go through a vulnerable transitional period during college.

“College students are at a unique point in their lives where they are like sponges for information, and if we can make an impact now…they can not only help themselves in the future but help others spread the message for us,” Morczek said. “They’re really a unique, dynamic population that has the ability to influence their peers and carry the message we’re giving them, potentially for the rest of their lives.”

Ignoring a problem, even one as terrible as violence, does not make it go away, she said.

“Sweeping it under the rug or feeling uncomfortable with talking about sexual assault or domestic violence or stalking is not going to stop the problem,” Morczek said.

It empowers Morczek when students who have attended a Green Dot training say they knew how to help another student because of what they learned, such as helping an unconscious person in the street that they otherwise would have ignored, she said.

“We had a couple students say in the Green Dot evaluation that before Green Dot they would not have helped in a potentially violent situation, but because they had the training, they had this information, they had this knowledge, they changed their behavior for the better,” she said.

Morczek was a debate coordinator in the Prison Debate Project at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, in which WSU students were placed with inmates to work collaboratively on laws, Morczek said. It gave students the chance to be immersed in the criminal justice field.

Morczek won the Woman of Distinction award from the President’s Commission on the Status of Women in April, Lutze said.

She said she has also worked as an educator for WSU Voices for Planned Parenthood and as an adviser for the WSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Last year Morczek was a member of the Vagina Monologues cast, Finnestead said.