2020 50th ANNIVERSARY GRADUATE CELEBRATION JULY 18, 2020 VIRTUAL CELEBRATION A A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT The health and well-being of the Walden community is of the utmost importance. To protect our graduates, their families, our alumni, faculty, and staff, we made the very difficult decision to transition from an on-site summer graduation ceremony to a special online celebration honoring our graduates and their milestone achievement. I know this is disappointing for our graduates and the entire Walden community; it is for me, too. We take our promise of providing Education for Good seriously, and that includes our obligation to be excellent corporate citizens. While we deeply regret having to make this decision regarding graduation, we believe that it is the responsible and right thing to do not only for our graduates, their families, and members of the Walden community, but also for our nation. This has been a truly challenging year for our country and the world. It has tested our commitment as a university dedicated to a mission of social change. Our extended Walden community has a shared responsibility to stand together in solidarity for racial justice and for the respect of every individual’s worth and dignity. We can all make a difference and demonstrate the power of what it means to be part of a university that delivers Education for Good. I hope that you are as proud as I am to call Walden University my university and that you will stay connected to our community through the many opportunities available in our active alumni association. Ward Ulmer ’04, PhD President 1 GRADUATE CELEBRATION SPEAKERS BRYAN TERRELL CLARK Bryan Terrell Clark is a singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and actor known for his role as George Washington in the record-breaking Broadway hit, Hamilton: An American Musical. He made his Broadway debut playing the iconic role of Marvin Gaye in Motown: The Musical,which received a 2014 Grammy Award nomination for “Best Musical Theater Album.” Clark also starred opposite Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett in the acclaimed drama Fences at the Pasadena Playhouse. Most recently, Clark appeared in Ava DuVernay’s highly acclaimed Netflix miniseries When They See Us, which is a 2020 Peabody Award recipient, and Cherish the Day, as well as Queen Sugar on the OWN network. He has also performed in a wide range of popular television programming, including CBS’ NCIS: New Orleans, Blue Bloods, Person of Interest, Unforgettable, CSI: NY, and The Unit. He has also had roles on NBC’s The Mysteries of Laura, Fox’s Empire, USA Network’s Royal Pains, and BET’s The New Edition Story and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. In addition, Clark appeared in the film Collateral Beauty, which was released in 2016 by Warner Bros. As a singer-songwriter and producer, he was co-writer on Mary J. Blige’s “Irreversible” on the album My Life II, and he has performed with such artists as Maxwell, Ciara, Brandy, Ne-Yo, Anita Baker, Michael Bublé, and many others. Clark’s production company, Artists Park Productions, has a creative collaboration with INE Entertainment, a leading independent production company, on a series of digital and television projects. Clark is the co-founder of inDEFINED, an initiative that inspires and teaches young people to use their voices to erase constrictive labels in our society. He is also the recipient of the 2018 Voice for Social Justice Award from Rutgers University, 2019 Gallery of Success Award from Temple University, and 2019 HELP Hero Award from HELP USA, which was for his ongoing commitment to social change and activism. 2 GRADUATE CELEBRATION SPEAKERS continued NIKKI GIOVANNI Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Over the past 30 years, her outspokenness in her writing and in lectures has brought the eyes of the world upon her. One of the most widely read American poets, she prides herself on being “a Black American, a daughter, a mother, and a professor of English.” Giovanni remains as determined and committed as ever to the fight for civil rights and equality. Always insisting on presenting the truth as she sees it, she has maintained a prominent place as a strong voice of the Black community. Her focus is on the individual, specifically on the power one has to make a difference in oneself, and thus, in the lives of others. Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-Black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her sister spent their summers with their grandparents in Knoxville, and she graduated with honors from Fisk University, her grandfather’s alma mater, in 1968. After graduating from Fisk, she attended the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and within the next year published a second book, thus launching her career as a writer. Early in her career, she was dubbed the “Princess of Black Poetry,” and over the course of more than three decades of publishing and lecturing, she has come to be called both a “national treasure” and one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends.” Many of Giovanni’s books have received honors and awards. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes, and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea were all honored with NAACP Image Awards. Blues: For All the Changes reached No. 4 on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list, a rare achievement for a book of poems. Her children’s picture book Rosa, about the civil rights legend Rosa Parks, became a Caldecott Honor book, and Bryan Collier, the illustrator, was given the Coretta Scott King award for best illustration. Rosa also reached No. 3 on The New York Times best-seller list. Giovanni’s spoken word recordings have also achieved widespread recognition and honors. Her album Truth Is On Its Way, on which she reads her poetry against a background of gospel music, was a top 100 album and named “Best Spoken Word Album” by the National Association of Radio and Television Announcers. Her Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, on which she reads and talks about her poetry, was one of five finalists for a Grammy Award. Giovanni’s honors and awards have been steady and plentiful throughout her career. The recipient of some 25 honorary degrees, she has been named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Ebony. She was tapped for the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame and named an Outstanding Woman of Tennessee. Giovanni has also received governor’s awards from both Tennessee and Virginia. She was the first recipient of the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, and she has also been awarded the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry. She is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and has received Life Membership and Scroll from the National Council of Negro Women. A member of PEN, she was honored for her life and career by The HistoryMakers. She has received the keys to more than two dozen cities. A scientist who admires her work even named a new species of bat he discovered for her. The author of some 30 books for both adults and children, Giovanni is a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and is the recipient of Virginia Tech’s highest honor, the Alumni Outreach Award. 3 COLLEGE LEADERSHIP Ward Ulmer, PhD, President Sue Subocz, PhD, Provost and Chief Academic Officer THE RICHARD W. RILEY COLLEGE OF COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND EDUCATION AND LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES Marilyn Powell, PhD, Vice Provost Savitri Dixon-Saxon, PhD, Vice Provost Kelley Costner, EdD, Dean SCHOOL OF COUNSELING COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES William M. Barkley, PhD, Dean Andrea Lindell, RN, PhD, ANEF, Vice Provost SCHOOL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SCHOOL OF HEALTH SCIENCES Shana Garrett, PhD, Dean Jörg Westermann, PhD, Dean SCHOOL OF HUMAN SERVICES COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOL- William M. Barkley, PhD, Dean OGY Marilyn Powell, PhD, Vice Provost SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY Shana Garrett, PhD, Dean SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Karlyn Barilovits, PhD, Dean SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY AND Shana Garrett, PhD, Dean APPLIED SCIENCE Karlyn Barilovits, PhD, Dean BARBARA SOLOMON SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK COLLEGE OF NURSING Lisa Moon, PhD, Dean Andrea Lindell, RN, PhD, Vice Provost George Zangaro, PhD, Dean 4 WALDEN HISTORY “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” —Henry David Thoreau,Walden (1854) Fifty years ago, Bernie and Rita Turner took a bold step that would change higher education in America and, ultimately, beyond. At that point in history, if you were a working professional who wanted to earn an advanced degree, most universities required that you quit your job and move close to their campus. The Turners believed that was unreasonable. And so they set out to create a new kind of university that would expand access to higher education and give more people the knowledge they needed to make a positive impact in the world. The Turners found a like-minded innovator in Dr. Harold “Bud” Hodgkinson, a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, who had published a paper that laid out a new vision for a student-centric university. Titled “Walden U: A Working Paper,” Hodgkinson’s vision became the philosophical underpinnings of the Turners’ new school: Walden University. Founded in 1970, Walden began with a 1971 summer session in Naples, Florida, that gave working teachers and school administrators the opportunity to finish their doctorates without having to leave their jobs or move.