RBC Announces 2025 Commencement Speaker
For Immediate Release: April 14, 2025
Contact: Jesse Vaughan, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer/jvaughan@rbc.edu
The 2025 Richard Bland College of William & Mary (RBC) Commencement will take place on the college grounds on Wednesday, May 14. Belle Wheelan, Ph.D., who currently serves as president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), will be this year’s commencement speaker.
“Richard Bland College is deeply honored that Dr. Belle Wheelan, a luminary among higher education leaders, will keynote the 2025 commencement ceremony this spring,” RBC President Debbie L. Sydow said. “Dr. Wheelan has been a role model and mentor for generations of college leaders, myself included, and she is a powerful orator.
“Members of the graduating class and everyone in attendance will be transfixed by Dr. Wheelan’s message.”
This year’s student speakers will be RBC Student Assembly President Melia Grady and Phi Theta Kappa Vice President Ana Conner. Notably, both students are semi-finalists of the highly competitive Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.
“Ana and Melia are truly deserving of this distinction,” said Dr. Ann Ifekwunigwe, RBC Director of University College. “They are outstanding ambassadors of Richard Bland College and we couldn’t be more proud of all they have accomplished.”
Dr. Wheelan has served as the SACSCOC president for more than two decades. She is the first African American and first woman to hold this position. Over the course of her illustrious career spanning more than 50 years, she has served as a faculty member, chief student services officer, campus provost, college president and the Virginia Secretary of Education. In several of those roles, she was the first African American and/or woman to serve in those capacities.
Dr. Wheelan received her bachelor’s degree from Trinity University in Texas (‘72) with a double major in Psychology and Sociology, her master’s from Louisiana State University (‘74) in Developmental Educational Psychology and her doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin (‘84) in Educational Administration with a concentration in Community College Leadership.
