The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has nominated senior Chelsea Jensen as a finalist for the 2024 National Student Production Award, otherwise known as a Student Emmy. NATAS selected five finalists from over 2,000 entries from local chapters.

According to The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences website, the National Student Production Award recognizes outstanding achievement in video production.

The “Mid-America Chapter Emmy” was the first award Jensen earned, which was a regional award because it was only out of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, and Louisiana 

The competition is rigorous, as Jensen put in hours of  work towards the application process alone. 

“The application process is year-long,” Jensen said. “You’re gathering news packages and content from January to December.” 

Staying motivated can be crucial to winning, and Jensen says that her teacher, media production teacher Michael Westbrook, motivated her the most. 

“Not a lot of people who aren’t in TV production understand what goes into the submissions, so my teacher was the most helpful in keeping me on track,”  Jensen said.

Westbrook saw early signs of potential in Chelsea as soon as sophomore year when she first joined media production. 

“One of the early things I noticed about Chelsea’s ability is that she was very curious about the process of putting a news story together and also her work ethic,” Westbrook said. 

Westbrook said that it wasn’t difficult to pull greatness out of Chelsea. 

“I pushed Chelsea to help her realize that she is great at this by providing her the critiques and then giving her room to figure out how to take that critique and make it better herself,” Westbrook said.