The University of Mary Washington will return to its Commencement traditions with the 2022 ceremony being held for the first time in two years on Ball Circle. This UMW Commencement, beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 7, will be the first to include both undergraduate and graduate students.

The speaker will be Sheila Shadmand, a 1995 graduate of Mary Washington who received her juris doctorate in 1998 from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Shadmand, a partner at Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms, has been a trailblazer for women in the Middle East. She became the first female head of an international law firm in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2012 and in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Fluent in French and Farsi, she is currently in charge of Jones Day’s Middle East and Africa region. Read more.

The University of Mary Washington is a premier, selective public liberal arts and sciences university in Virginia, highly respected for its commitment to academic excellence, strong undergraduate liberal arts and sciences program, and dedication to life-long learning. The university, with a total enrollment of more than 4,000, features colleges of business, education and arts and sciences, and three campuses, including a residential campus in Fredericksburg, Va., a second one in nearby Stafford and a third in Dahlgren, Va., which serves as a center of development of educational and research partnerships between the Navy, higher education institutions and the region’s employers.