 Scattered showers put a slight damper on the 179th year of “Final Exercises,” UVA’s graduation exercises, where 6,400 degrees were conferred May 18 by University President John Casteen, but the masses still poured down the Lawn for the traditional walk. Hunter R. Rawlings III, a visiting UVA classics professor and former president of Cornell and Iowa, delivered the commencement address. He ruminated on the beauty of the Lawn’s architecture, the purpose of a university education and the pitfalls of Wikipedia. |
2008 Graduation Weekend, by the numbers:
Bachelors degrees conferred: 3,576
Graduate degrees conferred: 2,291
Degrees conferred to international students: 676
Oldest undergrad degree-earner: Sharon Gail Parrish, 60
Youngest undergrad degree-earner: Jianyi Lee, 19
Percentage degrees earned by women: 52.4
Most degrees to residents of a state other than Virginia: 184, New York
Most degrees to residents of a nation other than the U.S.: 128, China
Three most popular undergraduate majors: Economics (387), psychology (354), commerce (324)
Number of chairs on the Lawn: 20,000
Percentage of the 21,000 cookies served that were “petite gourmet”: 81
Pounds of strawberries served: 400
Source: UVA Media Relations—numbers are as of May 12
