For Immediate Release

Date: April 13, 2006

BLOOMSBURG— Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania will host “Diversity, Globalization and the American Dream,” the Frederick Douglass Institute for Academic Excellence’s sixth annual conference, Wednesday and Thursday, April 19 and 20. 

The keynote speaker is Derrick N. Ashong, a doctoral student at Harvard University and featured actor in “Amistad,” an Oscar-nominated film about mutiny aboard a slave ship directed by Steven Spielberg. Ashong’s speech, “For the Love of Money: The Search for the American Voice,” will be presented Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Kehr Union Ballroom. Screenings of “Amistad” will take place at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the Kehr Union Hideaway. Both events are open to the public free of charge

Other conference highlights include student panel discussions Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon. A plenary session with Ashong, “Re-enacting the Middle Passage,” will be held from 11 a.m. to noon in the Kehr Union Ballroom.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and Cheyney University.

Bloomsburg University is one of 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The university serves approximately 8,000 students and offers 65 bachelor’s, 18 master’s and one doctoral degree.

###