North Carolina A&T is bringing the star power to its 2026 commencement ceremonies, tapping decorated multihyphenate Queen Latifah as its keynote speaker.
On April 13, the esteemed HBCU announced Queen Latifah and Nia Danielle Banks ’95, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, as the Spring 2026 Commencement keynote speakers. The award-winning entertainment artist will serve as the keynote speaker for both baccalaureate student ceremonies on Saturday, May 9, in First Horizon Coliseum. Banks will give the keynote on Friday, May 8.
The first ceremony, at 9 a.m., will honor graduates from
the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, College of Education, College of Engineering, and the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences. The second, at 2:30 p.m., will recognize students from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics, and the College of Science and Technology.Queen Latifah brings a wealth of experience and inspiration to the graduating class. The Grammy and Emmy-winning artist and acclaimed actress has built a decades-long career across music, film, and television. A New Jersey native, she became the first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and earned an Academy Award nomination for her role in “Chicago.”
She later won a Golden Globe and SAG Award for “Life Support,” along with an Emmy nomination, and took home a Primetime Emmy as an executive producer for “Bessie.” More recently, she received the National Medal of the Arts in 2024 and was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2023.
Banks, a North Carolina A&T State University alumna, is a plastic surgeon serving the
Annapolis, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., areas. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from A&T. She completed her M.D., Ph.D., and surgical training at Johns Hopkins University, becoming the first Black woman to complete its plastic surgery program, followed by a craniofacial fellowship in Paris.A leader in both medicine and business, she is a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She serves on Maryland’s Economic Development Commission. In 2009, she founded the Beaux Arts Institute of Plastic Surgery, which she later expanded with the Art of Balance Wellness Spa in 2020.
Together, Queen Latifah and Dr. Banks will pour into nearly 2,000 undergraduate and about 350 graduate students who will take part in the commencement ceremonies, which will also be livestreamed.
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