With Touched by an Angel and Promised Land you have become the first woman ever solely to executive produce two hour-long dramas simultaneously on network television and, perhaps more remarkably, have pioneered the treatment of religious themes in prime time. In a medium awash with wryness and cynicism, you deeply engage tens of millions of people each week with cathartic stories of struggle, hope, and redemption. Even in television success cannot be measured totally in numbers, witness the testimony of viewers whose own lives have been touched by these dramas—the prisoner in Nashville reporting the uncommon hush that falls over the cell block each Sunday at eight, the man from Wisconsin lured back from the edge of suicide, or the many encouraged to right relationships with aging family members while there still was time. To win in the television ratings game while honoring your own religious convictions may be a contemporary accomplishment akin to walking on water. It has earned you The Templeton Prize, the Anti Defamation League’s Deborah Award, the Catholics in Media Award, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Responsibility in Television—accolades to which your alma mater is now pleased to add its own.
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