Newswise — Hill Harper, whose acting career spans Married With Children and CSI:NY, will speak at the 170th Westfield State College Commencement, in Westfield, Mass., starting at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 16, under a tent on the campus green. Harper also is known for his writing and other initiatives to help disadvantaged youth.
President Evan S. Dobelle will preside over his second Westfield State commencement, presenting diplomas to 1,280 graduates on Saturday, as well as 165 advanced degrees in a separate Graduate Commencement on Thursday, May 14. The Division of Graduate and Continuing Education will present master's degrees and certificates of advanced graduate studies at 5 p.m. in the Woodward Center.
Honorary degree recipients, including Harper, will be honored at both ceremonies. They include Mark C. Volpe, managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Rachelle S. Cohen, Editorial Section editor for the Boston Herald; Milton R. and Ruth C. Bass, married couple and both successful authors and journalists; and Carmen C. Massimiano Jr., Berkshire County sheriff.
Massimiano, Cohen and Ruth and Milton Bass will be the speakers at the Graduate Commencement.
A posthumous honorary degree will be presented to Donald W. Blair of Westfield, widely known businessman, civic leader and volunteer.
"Hill Harper, as well as our other honorary degree recipients, are all excellent role models for our graduating students," Dobelle said. "Each followed his or her own path to provide something of great value to the world around them."
Harper is best known currently as the coroner Sheldon Hawkes on the popular CSI:NY television series on CBS. For this role, Harper won the 2008 NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Television Drama Series.
However, his off-screen work on behalf of disadvantaged youth is equally noteworthy. He is the author of two bestselling books: Letters to a Young Brother, which won two NAACP awards and was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association in 2007 and Letters to a Young Sister. Both are based on his motivational speaking engagements at inner city schools throughout the country. A volunteer for Big Brothers and Sisters in Los Angeles,
Harper also established MANifest Your Destiny Foundation, a non-profit youth organization that is providing scholarship and grant programs, mentorships, resources and constructive outlets for underserved boys without positive role models.
This organization and ForRealSolutions.com, a social network that he founded to encourage solutions to some of society's challenges demonstrate how he is using his success to generously give back to his community.
Harper graduated magna cum laude from Brown Univerity and cum laude with a law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Barack Obama. He also holds a master of public administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Upon graduation, however, he chose to forgo law and government to move to Hollywood to pursue an interest in acting. His film and television acting credits include Married with Children, The Sopranos, Beloved, One Red Rose, and the Spike Lee films, Get on The Bus and He Got Game.
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