UC San Diego will conduct its first all-campus commencement ceremony in 16 years Saturday morning on the RIMAC Field.
More than 8,000 students are scheduled to receive diplomas. After the all-campus graduation, individual colleges will hold ceremonies Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
"We are confident the UC San Diego class of 2016 will have a positive impact on our world," Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said.
"Our students and alumni are courageous and inventive, they push boundaries and challenge expectations, much like our keynote speaker for the all-campus commencement, Muhammad Yunus," Khosla said. "We are pleased to have Yunus address all of our graduating students, as he embodies UC San Diego's ideals of public service, social mobility and global citizenship."
Yunus is a Bangladesh-born economist and founder of the global microfinance movement who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for starting the nonprofit Grameen Bank. The bank helps poor people escape poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to the clients, and teaching them sound financial principles.
According to UCSD, the Grameen Bank has lent billions of dollars to impoverished people, mostly women, to help them start their own businesses.
Yunus has also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, two of the highest civilian honors in the United States.
The all-campus commencement ceremony was brought back to strengthen a sense of community among UCSD graduates, according to school officials.
Individual ceremonies are scheduled later Saturday for the Graduate Division, and Warren and Sixth colleges. Thurgood Marshall College, Revelle, Roosevelt and Muir colleges, the Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy will host ceremonies Sunday.
Graduation ceremonies have already been held for the School of Medicine, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
