Rising senior Nehemia Abel’s path to Mary Washington started with a refugee camp in eastern Africa.

Wanting their children to have a better future, his parents applied for resettlement in the United States. Though his family was one of the few who were fortunate to be chosen, they still endured hardships along the way.

Those experiences shaped Abel. Since enrolling at UMW, he’s strived to make it a more welcoming place for underrepresented students like himself. In just a few years, he has become a campus leader, working to unify and empower the student body and make the University and Fredericksburg communities more inclusive. 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 5,000, 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.