And the Founder’s Award Goes To. . . Director Betsy West `69
September 21, 2019
The 2019 Emmy-winning Director of RBG Betsy West ’69 will receive Wheeler’s Highest Alumni Award, the Founder’s Award, this October.
Wheeler will honor alumna Betsy West ‘69 with its 2019 Alumni Association Founder’s Award at her 50th Reunion this year. Betsy is the Fred W. Friendly Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism and a producer at Storyville Films. She has more than 30 years of experience in television news and documentaries garnering more than 21 Emmy Awards and four duPont-Columbia Awards.
Most recently, Betsy and directing partner Julie Cohen directed the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning film RBG about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University, Betsy served two terms on the Brown Corporation and is a member of the Brown Communications Advisory Council. She visited Wheeler as its distinguished Fox Family Speaker in 2015 presenting her work to students from grades Nursery – 12 as well as to alumni, parents, and friends.
Winning the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking at this September’s Creative Arts Emmys, “RBG” tied with “The Sentence” and bested “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” another film nominated at the 2019 Oscars. Betsy and Cohen were also nominated in the Best Nonfiction/Documentary Directing category for this year’s Emmy competition.
The Creative Arts Emmys honor outstanding artistic and technical achievement in a variety of television program genres, guest performances in weekly series, as well as exceptional work in the animation, reality, and documentary categories.
