Virigina Commonwealth University Alum Boris Kodjoe Delivers Keynote

Actor Boris Kodjoe returned to his alma mater, Virigina Commonwealth University (which he attended on a tennis scholarship), to deliver the commencement address.


The "Code Black" actor graduated in 1996 with a degree in marketing. And he was inducted into the VCU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017.

“Dear Class of 2018, I implore you, you must give yourself permission to fail in order to experience the privilege of success,” he started off saying. “There’s no success without failure because there’s no triumph without adversity, no diploma without a lesson learned.”

He talked about how his journey from a discriminated-against German teenager to VCU to being a top Hollywood actor .

“You have been blessed with an education that has ensured your academic development and your social awareness, an education that has given you knowledge and ignited your curiosity of the world and all of its people beyond these grounds, an education that has nurtured your confidence, fortified your integrity and expanded your socially conscious mind.”

Peep a clip from his address below:

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