Award-Winning Actress and Activist Marlee Matlin to Speak at NSU Education School’s Commencement

Master’s and doctoral education graduates to be honored during ceremony on Saturday, June 12 at 11 a.m.

FT. LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – Academy Award-winning actress and activist Marlee Matlin will be the speaker at the 2010 commencement ceremony for Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Fischler School of Education and Human Services. The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on Saturday, June 12 in the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla.

It will honor graduate students from NSU’s Fischler School, which is one of the largest schools of education at an accredited university in the United States.

Marlee Matlin

With more than 22,000 master’s programs graduates, the school has alumni working in educational settings throughout the U.S. and in dozens of other nations. The public is invited to join the university in recognizing the hard work, dedication and accomplishments of this latest group of more than 700 NSU education graduates.

“Our graduates go on to become some of the top educators there are,” said Nelson Diaz, Ed.D., Acting Education Provost and University Dean for NSU’s Fischler School. “We are honored to have Marlee as our speaker, as she is a passionate advocate for education, children, and people with disabilities. Her message of tolerance, acceptance and respect is one we hope all our graduates will take to heart as they move forward as professional educators.”

Matlin received worldwide critical acclaim for her motion picture debut in Children of a Lesser God, earning her the Academy Award for Best Actress. At age 21, she became the youngest recipient of the Best Actress Oscar, making her one of only four actresses to receive that honor for a film debut. In addition to the Oscar, Matlin was honored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama.

Since then, Matlin has starred in numerous feature films, and television shows including NBC’s My Name is Earl, Showtime’s cutting-edge drama The L Word, and The West Wing. In 2008, Matlin broke barriers once again when she joined the cast of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

Passionate about children, Matlin has also appeared in a number of educational and children’s programs. Matlin served as host of PBS’s Emmy Award winning series People in Motion and, in 2007, was featured in the PBS documentary, Through Deaf Eyes. Her other television appearances include MTV’s Rock the Vote, Disney’s award-winning series Adventures in Wonderland, and Nickelodeon’s Emmy Award-winning Blues Clues where she appeared as Marlee the Librarian. She can currently be seen starring in Disney’s highly acclaimed Baby Einstein DVD series, teaching sign language to infants and toddlers.

Matlin is also the author of three novels for children entitled Deaf Child Crossing (2002) and the sequels, Nobody’s Perfect (2006) and Leading Ladies (2007). She most recently penned her autobiography, I’ll Scream Later, taking readers on the frank and touching journey of her life, from the frightening loss of her hearing at 18-months-old, to the highs and lows of Hollywood, her battles with addiction, and the unexpected challenges of being thrust into the spotlight as an emissary for the deaf community.

Matlin currently serves as a National Celebrity Spokesperson for the American Red Cross, encouraging Americans to donate blood. She has worked on behalf of closed captioning and was instrumental in getting Congress to pass federal legislation requiring all televisions manufactured in the United States be equipped with closed captioning technology.

For more information about NSU’s Fischler School, please visit www.fischlerschool.nova.edu.

For more information about all of NSU’s 2010 Commencement ceremonies, please visit www.nova.edu/commencement.

Media Contact:
Andra Liwag, NSU Office of Public Affairs
954-262-5309 (office), 954-873-8494 (cell), andrali@nova.edu