Humanitarian and Actress Melissa Fitzgerald to Deliver Commencement Address

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PHILADELPHIA, PA (04/30/2008)(readMedia)-- Humanitarian and actress Melissa Fitzgerald will deliver the 81st commencement address at Chestnut Hill College on Saturday, May 17, at 2 p.m. at an outdoor ceremony on the College's campus.

Melissa Fitzgerald, best known for her role as Carol Fitzpatrick on the award-winning television series, The West Wing, will address the Class of 2008, which includes the largest undergraduate graduating class in the history of the College. During the commencement ceremony, Ms. Fitzgerald will receive the Chestnut Hill College Medal.

Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees will be awarded to William T. Walker, Ph.D., senior vice president, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Chestnut Hill College and to alumna Emily McKay Binns, Ph.D. ’63 (posthumously). The College will award 231 bachelor degrees, 94 graduate degrees as well as 18 doctoral degrees in clinical psychology during the ceremony.

In addition to being a talented actress, Ms. Fitzgerald is also an activist and humanitarian, sharing both her time and talent to give back to the community. In 1995, Ms. Fitzgerald established Voices in Harmony, a non-profit community outreach theatre program that mentors at-risk youth from the Los Angeles area. The program provides positive adult role models and tutors to help them achieve in school and succeed in life. Through exploring the artistic expression of theatre, teens are encouraged to examine issues such as drug abuse, prejudice, racism, and violence.

With their mentor and the expertise of professional directors and writers, participants create short films or plays that show how these issues affect their lives. The group recently produced Listen, a drug awareness documentary film written and performed by the teens and their mentors that explores the challenges of growing up in urban Los Angeles. To date, Voices in Harmony has worked with over 400 at-risk teenagers and volunteer mentors in after-school programs.

Ms. Fitzgerald has also spent time in Uganda, taking the Voices in Harmony program to the war-torn country, using expression and acting as a means of healing and forgiveness. In 2007, Melissa and a team from Voice of Harmony traveled with a camera crew to an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp in Kitgum, located in northern Uganda, working with the Ugandan youth over the course of a month to turn their stories into plays to perform for their camp. Inspired by this experience and the stories collected during this trip, Ms. Fitzgerald produced and was the co-artistic director for the film Voices of Uganda, a unique and compelling documentary film revealing the situation facing the youth in Uganda.

In addition to her role as Carol Fitzpatrick on the West Wing, Melissa Fitzgerald has appeared on the television series Grey’s Anatomy and General Hospital and in the movies The Truman Show, Boxing Helena, and Frequency.

Ms. Fitzgerald, a native of Philadelphia, is the daughter of long-time Chestnut Hill residents, Carol McCullough Fitzgerald, executive director of the Pennsylvania Society and member of the Chestnut Hill College Board of Directors, and the Honorable James J. Fitzgerald, III, currently serving as a Senior Judge on The Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Melissa Fitzgerald earned a bachelor of arts degree in literature and drama from the University of Pennsylvania and studied acting at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

About Chestnut Hill College: Chestnut Hill College, a four-year coed Catholic college in the Ignatian tradition, offers a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master’s and doctoral programs. The College has been rated by US News & World Report as among the best master’s universities in the North, as among the best Northeastern colleges by The Princeton Review, and has been classified as selective by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Since its inception, the College has offered a rigorous curriculum that provides students with a broad background in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The goal of Chestnut Hill College has been to prepare students for life’s challenges by helping them to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.

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