VV
the women’s issue
THE ARTS ADVOCATE
Amy Unell
Arts Entrepreneurship, Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts, Duke University; Founder/Producer/Director, StoryTales Productions A native of Kansas City, Mo., this Duke University alumna returned to her alma mater to work with the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts as well as Duke’s Career Center, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, Alumni Affairs and to teach in Policy Journalism and Media Studies. Formerly a LA-based producer for NBC’s “TODAY Show,” she has covered a broad range of subjects – from shark attacks in Hawaii, to the Academy Awards and the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, to Sarah Palin’s nomination for vice president in Alaska.
“T Press Play Students in Amy’s “Advanced Media & Innovation” fall seminar produced short documentaries on several Trianglebased entrepreneurs – visit bit.ly/ AdvancedMediaPlaylist to watch the videos.
64
D u r h a m
M a g a z i n e
TALK IS CHEAP; ACTIONS SPEAK louder” – those were the words from Duke’s former track and field head coach and Olympic coach Al Buehler that struck a chord with Amy in her first semester at the university as she sat in his “History and Issues of Sports” seminar. (Just last year, Coach Buehler retired after 60 years, the longest tenure of a professor at Duke.) Following a seven-year stint as a producer for NBC’s “TODAY Show,” Amy was invited back to Duke in 2010 to participate in the Duke Media Fellows program; her project morphed into a documentary featuring her former instructor – “Starting at the Finish Line: The Coach Buehler Story” – focused on civil rights, women’s rights and international relations as seen through the lens of track and field with Coach Buehler and his best friend, former U.S. Olympic Committee President LeRoy T. Walker of N.C. Central University. She went M a y
2 0 1 6