Howard University renames College of Fine Arts after Chadwick Boseman

WASHINGTON — Howard University announced on Wednesday that it is renaming its College of Fine Arts after alumnus Chadwick Boseman.

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The “Black Panther” star, who died on Aug. 28, 2020, at age 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer, graduated from Howard in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, The Washington Post reported.

In a statement, Boseman’s family thanked Howard President Wayne A.I. Fredrick and the Board of Trustees for renaming the college. Earlier this month, Howard named actor and alumnus Phylicia Rashad as the dean of the fine arts school.

>> Actress Phylicia Rashad named dean at Howard University’s College of Fine Arts

“Chad fought to preserve the College of Fine Arts during his matriculation at Howard and remained dedicated to the fight throughout his career, and he would be overjoyed by this development,” the Boseman family said. “His time at Howard University helped shape both the man and the artist that he became, committed to truth, integrity and a determination to transform the world through the power of storytelling,” the statement continued. “We are confident that under the dynamic leadership of his former professor and mentor, the indomitable Phylicia Rashad, that the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts will inspire artistic scholars for many generations.”

The renaming unites Howard and Walt Disney Co.’s executive chairman, Bob Iger, the Post reported. Iger 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 newspaper reported.

In addition to the fine arts college, the new building is expected to house the Cathy Hughes School of Communications, its TV station, WHUT, and its radio station, WHUR 96.3 FM, the Post reported.

>> ‘Black Panther’ actor Chadwick Boseman dies at 43

Boseman was the university’s commencement speaker in 2018, NPR reported.

“When you are deciding on next steps, next jobs, next careers, further education, you should rather find purpose than a job or a career,” Boseman told the graduating class. “Purpose crosses disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history.”

In a statement, Rashad said Boseman was “unrelenting in his pursuit of excellence.”

“Chadwick was possessed with a passion for inquiry and a determination to tell stories -- through acting, writing, and directing -- that revealed the beauty and complexity of our human spirit,” Rashad said.

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates was a fellow student with Boseman, working as a reporter for the Hilltop newspaper.

“One of my outstanding memories of him as a public figure is of him being one of the leaders of the protest to preserve the College of Fine Arts, which we knew even at that time, had turned out so many alumni like Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen,” Coates told Variety. “That was very present to us. We were all mourning when they shut it down.

“For him to go out into the world, to take the knowledge that he had acquired at Howard University, and become the artist that he became -- obviously we all mourn his passing much, much, much too early -- but I know how important that college was to him,” Coates told Variety. “And given everything that he gave, I don’t know who else it could be named after. It feels totally appropriate for who he was.”

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