George Mason University will honor 4,775 students from around the globe and welcome back two highly successful alumni at Winter Graduation ceremonies on the Fairfax Campus at EagleBank Arena on Thursday.
The 10 a.m. ceremony is for graduates in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science, Schar School of Policy and Government, the Antonin Scalia Law School and the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. The ceremony speaker is Kelly McNamara Corley, JD ‘89, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Discover Financial Services.
The 2 p.m. ceremony is for graduates in the School of Business, College of Health and Human Services, College of Education and Human Development, Volgenau School of Engineering, and College of Visual and Performing Arts. The ceremony speaker is M. Brian Blake, PhD Information Technology ‘00, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Drexel University.
A graduating Mason student will also speak at each ceremony. The morning student speaker is Becky Johnson, who will receive a master of arts in international commerce and policy. The afternoon student speaker is Jehad Halawani, who will receive a master of education in curriculum and instruction.
Doors open one hour prior to the start of each ceremony. The ceremonies will be broadcast live, with closed captioning or without closed captioning. The recorded broadcast will include closed captioning.
The Winter Graduation honorees include 4,409 degree recipients and 366 certificate recipients. There are 2,749 candidates for bachelor’s degrees, from 43 countries and 31 states. Forty percent of undergraduates reporting parental education levels say they will be the first in their families to earn a college degree. The most popular undergraduate majors for this class are criminology, law and society; psychology; biology; information systems and operations management; and accounting.
There are 1,501 candidates for master’s degrees, 153 doctoral candidates, and six law degree candidates, hailing from 37 countries and 32 states. The most popular master’s programs for this class are curriculum and instruction, special education, business administration, education leadership and accounting. The top five doctoral programs represented by the graduates are education, psychology, computer science, conflict analysis and resolution, and public policy.