It’s nearing commencement season and Clark Atlanta College is tapping into the Hillman legacy as Debbie Allen prepares to ship the college’s graduation speech this yr.
The multi-time Emmy Award winner and a doctorate recipient (Howard College, Yale College and the College of North Carolina Faculty of the Arts) will deal with graduating college students on Might 18. In a put up shared on the college’s official Instagram account, CAU championed Allen’s work as a excessive instance of “self-discipline, creativity, and unapologetic excellence.”
The graduation speech for CAU shouldn’t be the primary time Allen has been requested to handle graduates. She was the graduation speaker for NCSA in 1992, Emerson Faculty in 2013, and Duke College’s Fuqua Faculty of Enterprise in 2022, to call just a few.
The ceremonies at Clark Atlanta gained’t be the one graduation for Allen and her household. Her older sister, Phylicia Rashad, is ready to ship the graduation speech at Oakwood College‘s commencement ceremonies on Might 8 in Alabama.
For Allen, her time in Atlanta has been fruitful. Final month, Netflix introduced that the sequel collection to beloved sitcom “A Completely different World” had started filming in Atlanta. The dancer and entertainer served as a producer and director on the unique collection after its first season, reworking it into one of many biggest cultural landmarks of HBCU life. This time round, she’s directing three episodes of the brand new collection, together with the pilot.
“There couldn’t be a greater time than now to reboot ‘A Completely different World,’” Allen informed Tudum, Netflix’s media journal devoted to all issues on the platform. “Our present modified lives, tripled the enrollment of traditionally black faculties and gave a powerful voice and platform for Younger Black America. The unimaginable recent younger expertise we’ve found paired with the lovable viewers favourite OGs makes this much-anticipated return a must-see on Netflix.”
Now set to impart knowledge on CAU college students together with her graduation speech, the “Fame” and “Gray’s Anatomy” star is killing two birds with one stone, all in one of many meccas for HBCU tradition.
