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2024 Commencement Honorees

2024 Commencement Honorees

Roxbury Community College (RCC) is pleased to announce the 2024 Commencement Honorees!  RCC will recognize the following leaders for their support of RCC and contributions to the Greater Roxbury Community at the 48th Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 17, 2024.

roberto chao

Roberto Chao, Alumni Achievement Award

Roberto has had the privilege to build groups to express their inner thoughts on a wide range of collective art projects. For decades, he has carried out community artworks that illustrate, empower, and enrich the cultural environment of the communities in which they are created.

The many mural projects Chao has created and directed are highly respected and enhance the streets of Boston (Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, South End, Waltham, Chelsea, and East Boston) as well as other cities, like Lowell, Salem, Worcester, and Manchester, NH., and countries like Uruguay, Puerto Rico, México, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

In 2023, Chao led 'An Ode to Africa in the Americas,' a collaborative mural project, in a distinctive partnership with RCC, to celebrate Africa’s profound influence on and cultural manifestations within the American continent.

liz walker

Liz Walker, Lifetime Achievement Award

Liz Walker, former journalist, humanitarian, and minister, leads the Cory Johnson Program for Post-Traumatic Healing (CJP). Named after a young, murdered member of Roxbury Presbyterian Church where Reverend Walker served as pastor until December of 2021, CJP is a faith-inspired, clinically supported, community-based program that addresses the epidemic of Post-Traumatic Stress in a neighborhood too often overrun by violence. CJP offers weekly community gatherings called ‘Can We Talk…’ where residents are encouraged to share traumatic experiences, increase their understanding of psychological trauma, and learn coping skills. The program also offers access to mental health support that some residents might not otherwise receive. Since it began in 2014, CJP has served thousands of residents and is in the process of replicating its ‘Can We Talk…’ community sharings around the country.

Shaumba-Yandje Wa Dibinga

Shaumba-Yandje Wa Dibinga, Community Service Award

Shaumba-Yandje Dibinga is a Congolese American born to Rev. Dr. Dibinga wa Said and Dr. Ngolela wa Kabongo, refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who became international freedom fighters and educators.

She received her BA from University of Massachusetts Boston and holds additional studies and training from the Boston Conservatory and the Alvin Ailey Summer Professional Program with an invitation to study in the two-year fellowship program. She is the Founding Artistic Director of the OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center, which was founded and established in 1991 and became a non-profit in 1994. OrigiNation utilizes dance as a tool to empower young people, one dancer at a time.

 

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