Marc Lamont Hill, one of the nation’s leading hip-hop generation intellectuals, has been chosen as the 2010 commencement speaker for CSU Stanislaus.

Hill was trained as an anthropologist of education at the University of Pennsylvania. His work covers topics such as hip-hop culture, politics, sexuality, education and religion.

Hill is the author of “HBeats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy,” and “Politics of Identity” and the co-editor of “Media, Learning, and Sites of Possibility” and “The Anthropology of Education Reader.” Additionally, Hill is currently completing two manuscripts: “Knowledge of Self: Race, Masculinity,” and the “Politics of Reading;” and “You Ain’t Heard It From Me: Snitching, Rumors and Other People’s Business in Hip-Hop America.”

Hill is also a nationally syndicated columnist, and serves as a political contributor for Fox News Channel.  In 2005, Ebony Magazine named Hill one of America’s top 30 Black leaders under 30 years old.

Currently, Hill works as a faculty member of the Teacher’s College at Columbia University, where he also holds an affiliated faculty appointment in African American Studies at the Columbia University Institute for Research in African American Studies.

Hill continues to work directly with African American and Latino youth. In 2001, he started a literacy project that uses hip-hop culture to increase school engagement and reading skills among high school students.

Hill will speak at both the June 4 and 5 commencement ceremonies. Both ceremonies will begin at 8 a.m. and will be held in the Amphitheatre at CSU Stanislaus’ Turlock campus.