185 Nassau Street
110 Stewart Film Theater

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator

William A. Gleason
Hughes-Rogers Professor of English and American Studies.

Panelists

Garth Richard Ancier ’79
Board Member and Board Advisor, Media and Tech

David Getson ’94
Gaming and Entertainment Entrepreneur

Shalisha Francis-Feusner ’99
Writer/Producer

Rachel Sydney Alter ’14
Television Writer

Moderator

William A. Gleason
Hughes-Rogers Professor of English and American Studies.

William Gleason specializes in American literature and culture. His research and teaching interests range from the 18th century to the present and include popular culture, children’s literature, environmental humanities, and multiethnic U.S. literatures. His recent undergraduate courses include “American Television,” “Children’s Literature” and “The Disney Industrial Complex.” In 2006, Gleason received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the McGraw Center Graduate Mentoring Award. He has served as department chair and director of graduate studies for the Department of English, and as acting director for the Program in American Studies. He is currently affiliated with the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Program in Urban Studies, the Department of African American Studies and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities.

Panelists

Garth Ancier ’79
Board Member and Board Advisor, Media and Tech

A longtime leader in television programming, Garth Ancier has greenlit hits from “The Simpsons” to “The West Wing” and “Law & Order: SUV.” In 1986, he was a founder of Fox Broadcasting and its first programming chief; in 1989 he became president of Disney Television; and in 1993, he co-created and produced the talk show “Ricki Lake.” A founder and the first programming chief of The WB Television  Network in 1995, he rejoined NBC in 1999 as president of entertainment before returning to Time Warner as corporate EVP of programming for all 15 Turner networks, including CNN, TNT and The WB. He became CEO of The WB in 2004 and remained through the 2006 merger with UPN. He then became CEO of all the BBC Worldwide Americas companies. He serves on the board of AdGreetz, an ad-tech platform. Ancier remains an adviser and investor in tech and media.

David Getson ’94
Gaming and Entertainment Entrepreneur

David Getson co-founded g-net in 2001 and grew it into one of the leading marketing agencies in the gaming/entertainment sector. Serving as a close partner to every major platform, publisher and studio, Getson has helped launch and grow dozens of the world’s most successful gaming and entertainment franchises over the last two decades. In 2021, Getson sold g-net to U.K.-based Keywords Studios in one of the largest transactions to date for a games-focused agency. At Keywords, Getson helped form the world’s largest network of games/entertainment-focused agencies and helped develop the operational processes to integrate them into the company’s international constellation of businesses spanning 23 countries and more than 13,000 employees. Getson is now working on the launch of several new companies in the gaming/entertainment and AI spaces. Prior to g-net, Getson was founder, publisher and editor in chief of Icon magazine.

Shalisha Francis-Feusner ’99
Writer/Producer

Shalisha Francis-Feusner was a quarterfinalist on The WB singing competition “Popstars” and an alternate for the CBS reality show “Big Brother.” Then, after studying entertainment law at Duke, she worked at Proskauer Rose in New York before moving to Los Angeles and serving as in-house counsel for Warner Bros. Records, where she represented such artists as E-40, Ashley Tisdale, Stevie Nicks and Faith Hill. She then switched gears and became a television writer. Francis-Feusner has developed shows for Apple, CBS and FX with the likes of Stacey Abrams, Tommy Kail, Octavia Spencer and Kerri Washington. Her series credits include “Castle,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” “The Wilds” and the Emmy award-winning drama “Seven Seconds.” Her episode of “Seven Seconds” earned her an Image Award nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Television Series. In 2023, she received a Golden Globe nomination for her work on “The Morning Show.”

Rachel Sydney Alter ’14
Television Writer

Rachel Alter is a film and television writer living in Los Angeles. She was most recently a co-executive producer on season four of the Netflix show “Outer Banks,” for which she has written for multiple seasons. Her previous work includes “Loki” (Disney), “Heels” (STARZ) and “The Society” (Netflix). She currently has pilots in development with Peacock and Warner Bros. A member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) West since 2016, Alter was an active participant in the 2023 writers’ strike. She was one of four lot coordinators overseeing Paramount and Raleigh studios, and was in charge of organizing pickets held there for the duration of the strike. Post-strike, she continues to volunteer with the guild, including as a captain, a role she began in 2019 during the WGA’s agency campaign. Before working in television, Alter taught English in Chiang Mai, Thailand, through the Princeton in Asia program.