Following the recent appointment of beloved TV mom Phylicia Rashad as Howard University’s new Dean of Fine Arts, the acclaimed HBCU has furthered its connection to Hollywood, announcing that its College of Fine Arts will be renamed after the late actor Chadwick Boseman, one of the school’s most noteworthy alumni.
Boseman graduated from the school in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in directing. He then went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest rising stars with his starring roles in 2018’s Black Panther and 2020’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Leading Actor. Boseman passed away in August 2020 at the age of just 43 after a battle with colon cancer.
Keith L. Alexander of The Washington Post reported that Howard’s renaming of its College of Fine Arts unites the school with Walt Disney Co.’s executive chairman, Bob Iger, “who will spearhead fundraising for an endowment named after Boseman, as well as help raise money for the construction of a state-of-the-art building on the campus. The new building will house the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, the Cathy Hughes School of Communications, its TV station, WHUT, and its radio station, WHUR 96.3 FM.”
