Abbott Elementary's Sheryl Lee Ralph Is Rutgers Commencement Speaker

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — On Thursday, Rutgers announced their spring 2023 commencement speaker: It will be Broadway actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, who is most known for her leading role as Deena Jones in the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls," for which she was nominated for a Tony award.

The Rutgers graduation will be May 14. The week-long Rutgers faculty strike came to an end around midnight last Friday night, after a deal was reached between the professors on strike and university administration.

Born in 1956, Ralph was among the first class of undergraduate women admitted to Rutgers College in 1972. She performed in theater and in campus plays while at Rutgers.

At 19, she graduated near the top of her class at Rutgers in 1975, earning her college degree in English literature and theater arts. Ralph was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2002.

Ralph has a career spanning four decades in the Hollywood and Broadway entertainment industry: She has appeared in Moesha, a lead role in Instant Mom, starred in Ray Donovan and appeared in many other shows, including Barbershop, ER, Designing Women, Criminal Minds and Claws.

At the 2022 Emmy Awards, she won an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series award for her role as all-knowing kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard in ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary.

The show is about an underfunded Philadelphia public school and its dedicated teachers. Ralph said she based the character, in part, on her mother-in-law, Ann Hughes, who worked as a secretary in the Philadelphia public school system.

Ralph is currently recurring as President Kelly Wade in Motherland.

In the movie industry, Ralph has worked on The Mighty Quinn, Mistress, To Sleep with Anger and The Distinguished Gentlemen, where she was awarded as Best Supporting Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards for her performance.

Like so many actors today, she has also moved into writing and directing and her award-winning short film Secrets was a finalist in the HBO Film Short Competition.

After Dream Girls, Ralph has performed on Broadway most recently as Madame Morrible in Wicked, becoming the first Black actress to take on the classic role. She also produced on Broadway’s Thoughts of a Colored Man. Additional Broadway credits include the Tony Award-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and reuniting with Loretta Devine and Jennifer Holliday for a sold-out, one-night-only Dreamgirls reunion.

This year she performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during the pregame entertainment at Super Bowl LVII.

Her book, Redefining Diva: Life Lessons from the Original Dreamgirl was a national best-selling title.

Off camera, Ralph is an AIDS activist ad was recently appointed as an AIDS Ambassador for Jamaica’s Ministry of Health.

A mother of two with a blended family of four, Ralph is married to Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes, a Democrat.

At the May 14 graduation, Rutgers will also give an honorary doctor of science degree for Katalin Karikó, award-winning neurosurgery professor and former senior vice president of BioNTech.

World-renowned jazz musician Terence Blanchard will be the commencement speaker at Rutgers Newark on May 16, held at the Prudential Center.

And the former mayor of Camden, Hon. Dana Redd, will speak at the Rutgers Camden graduation.