Smiley will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the university that morning, as well.
“We are thrilled that Tavis Smiley accepted our invitation to speak at this year’s undergraduate commencement ceremony, and we are equally pleased to bestow on him an honorary doctorate,” said CSUDH President Mildred García. “From the strides he has made in his career as a broadcaster to his dedication to youth and commitment to social change, Mr. Smiley is a role model for our graduates as they go out and make their own mark on society.”
The host of the nightly PBS talk show “Tavis Smiley” and the weekly radio program “The Tavis Smiley Show” on Pubic Radio International, and a regular commentator on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show” radio program, Smiley is one of the most influential African American broadcast journalists in the United States today.
The oldest of 10 children, Smiley grew up in Indiana and attended Indiana University in Bloomington on a debate scholarship. After graduating with a degree in public and environmental affairs in 1986, he moved to Los Angeles to serve as an aide to then Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
His broadcast career began in 1991 when he produced weekly one-minute news segments called “Tavis Smiley Report” for a Los Angeles radio station. Five years later the report was added to Joyner’s show and Smiley expanded his repertoire to television, producing and hosting “BET Tonight” on Black Entertainment Television.
Since leaving BET in 2001, he has further solidified his position as a national commentator and journalist through his shows on National Public Radio (until 2004) and now PBS and PRI. Newsweek declared him one of the nation’s “captains of the airwaves,” and among the top 20 people “changing how Americans get their news.”
Smiley is also an author, having written or edited a number of books on social and economic empowerment, including the Covenant with Black America, a series of essays by black scholars, activists, and political figures that became No. 1 on the New York Times Best-Seller List. He has also written a memoir titled What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America.
Through his celebrity, the Los Angeles resident has worked tirelessly to give back, particularly to the black community. For the past nine years his Tavis Smiley Foundation has worked with more than 5,000 black youth, helping them develop their leadership skills and in the process empowering them to reach their potential. His philanthropy has also contributed to ongoing scholarships for black students and the establishment of schools for communications and professional media studies at Texas Southern University.
Smiley will address approximately 1,500 bachelor’s degree candidates walking in the 2008 Commencement Ceremony on May 23. The ceremony will be webcast live through a link on the commencement web site, http://www.csudh.edu/
Located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, CSU Dominguez Hills is considered by US News and World Report to be one of the most diverse campuses on the West Coast. With a student population of 12,000, no one ethnicity is in the majority; the student make-up is 39.7% Hispanic, 31.1 African American, 18.2 white, 10.6 Asian, and .04 American Indian.
CSU Dominguez Hills offers 45 bachelor degrees and 21 master’s degrees in its six colleges: College of Education, College of Business Administration and Public Policy, College of Arts and Humanities, College of Health and Human Services, College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences, and College of Extended and International Education. It is recognized for its excellence in teacher education, business administration, nursing, psychology and digital media arts. For more information, visithttp:// www.csudh.edu.
A commencement ceremony for master’s degree candidates will take place on Thursday May, 22, at 7 p.m. at the Home Depot Center Tennis Stadium. At that ceremony California Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-55th) will give the keynote address, and Mónica Lazano, publisher of La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country and the second largest paper in Los Angeles, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.
