Visionary Changemaker Shawn Dove to Keynote Baruch College’s 2022 Commencement Ceremony

May 4, 2022

Prominent activist and social justice thought leader Shawn Dove will be the keynote speaker for Baruch College’s Commencement Ceremony on May 26, 2022 at Barclays Center.

Dove has nearly four decades of cross-sector leadership in the fields of youth and leadership development, community-building, philanthropy, arts education, and media literacy.

His leadership mantra is: There is no cavalry coming to save the day in our communities. We are the iconic leaders that we have been waiting for; curators of the change we are seeking to see.

A Passionate Leader

Most recently, Dove founded the Corporation for Black Male Achievement, a national consulting and publishing firm that produces community-building and leadership development engagements that elevate stories of loving, learning, and leading for and by Black men and boys. The organization was spun off from the Campaign for Black Male Achievement (CBMA), which launched in 2008 at the Open Society Foundations originally as a three-year effort to improve life outcomes for Black men and boys.

With Dove at the helm as CEO, CBMA invested and leveraged more than $212 million in national and local funds, while connecting thousands of leaders and organizations on behalf of the emerging field of Black Male Achievement.

Among Dove’s key accomplishments during his tenure were supporting the launch of President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative and brokering a pioneering partnership to launch the NYC Young Men’s Initiative.

Dove also currently serves as a managing partner for New Profit, a venture philanthropy organization that backs social entrepreneurs who are advancing equity and opportunity in America.

Dove has also held leadership roles in many other prominent community-based organizations, including as Program Director of the Harlem Children Zone’s Countee Cullen Community Center; Executive Director of The DOME Project; Director of Youth Ministries for First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens, Somerset, N.J.; Creative Communities Director for the National Guild for Community Schools of the Arts; and Vice President of MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership.

Sharing a Powerful Story

Working with Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Nick Chiles, Dove is a co-author of I Too Am America: On Loving and Leading Black Men & Boys, equal parts memoir, historical account of CBMA, and platform for the many inspiring voices from the Black Male Achievement movement.

In this book, Dove draws from his own personal history as a young Black boy growing up in New York City to amplify and reframe the stories of Black people and their communities in a more humanizing way.

Dove has a long-standing commitment to multimedia that amplifies and reframes the voices and stories of Black people and their communities and to investing in people of color–led media companies and productions. With I Too Am America – and through the rest of his work as an advocate and community development leader — Dove aims to offer a set of strategic recommendations on how society can move from an era of racial reckoning to racial resolution.

Throughout the years, Dove has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the key to the City of Louisville, Black Enterprise’s “Modern Man of the Year” (2017), Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 (2015), Columbia University’s Charles H. Revson Fellowship, and a Prime Movers Fellowship for social impact leaders (2014).

2022 Commencement Ceremony

Baruch College will hold its 2022 Commencement Ceremony for both undergraduate and graduate students on Thursday, May 26 at Barclays Center at 620 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The ceremony, which will begin at 9:30 a.m., will also be livestreamed on the Baruch College website.

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