People & Places
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NCCU’s 137th Commencement BY HANNAH LEE
Nearly 1,000 North Carolina Central University graduates received their degrees on May 8 during the university’s 137th commencement exercises at O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium. Spring 2021 graduates were joined by the winter and spring 2020 classes, who had to forgo commencement ceremonies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Not only have you reached a milestone in obtaining your undergraduate degree, but you did it during a global pandemic,” Chancellor Johnson O. Akinleye said. “And while we know the work has just begun in making America a better and more equitable country, as NCCU graduates you will supply the world with innovation, ideas and solutions that will further improve our society for the next generation.” 16
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durhammag.com
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august 2021
1 More than 600 students received their bachelor’s degrees. 2 Alumnus James H. Johnson Jr., ’75, the William R. Kenan Jr. distinguished professor of strategy and entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill, addressed the 285 graduate students and 81 juris doctor recipients at the ceremony. 3 Chancellor Johnson O. Akinleye. 4 NCCU alumna Jasmine Crowe, ’05, gave remarks at the undergraduate commencement.