RALEIGH, N.C. – As part of its annual Homecoming celebration activities, Shaw University announced Cheryl Polote Williamson as the keynote speaker for the Founder’s Day Convocation ceremony on Friday, Oct. 22 beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the Raleigh Convention Center, adjacent to the campus. Polote Williamson is a nationally acclaimed best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker, executive producer and success coach. Additionally, she is a global leader who has successfully ushered 470 individuals into entrepreneurship. Williamson is the CEO and founder of Williamson Media Group, LLC, and Cheryl Polote Williamson, LLC.
Shaw University President Dr. Paulette Dillard said, “We are so pleased to have our alumna Cheryl Polote Williamson join us this year to inspire our Shaw University alumni and students during this auspicious occasion.” In response to the invitation to serve as keynote speaker, Polote Williamson said: “Accepting the invitation to provide the Founder’s Day Convocation speech at Shaw University this year is truly an honor. To have the opportunity to deliver a message of hope, intentionality, and transformation to the very institution that believed in me, poured into me, and made me who I am, is truly a once in a lifetime vision board experience. Returning to Shaw University will be an unforgettable experience. I am forever grateful for this moment!”
Shaw University was founded in 1865, and that historic milestone is celebrated annually with a Founder’s Day Convocation. A full list of Homecoming activities is available online at homecoming.shawu.edu.
Shaw University, located in Raleigh, North Carolina, is the first historically Black institution of higher education in the South and among the oldest in the nation. The University was founded in 1865 by Henry Martin Tupper. Shaw boasts many “firsts”: the first college in the nation to offer a four-year medical program, the first historically Black college in the nation to open its doors to women, and the first historically Black college in North Carolina to be granted an “A” rating by the State Department of Public Instruction. Dr. Paulette Dillard currently serves as the University’s 18th President.
