Final preparations under way for UVa's 181st Final Exercises

The University of Virginia will mark its 181st Final Exercises this weekend before a crowd expected to be 30,000 to 35,000 strong.

In the days leading up to graduation weekend, some 200 workers have set out roughly 40,000 chairs at 50 sites around the university, including 20,000 on the Lawn for the valedictory exercises Saturday and the commencement ceremony Sunday.

About 18 tents have been erected to serve as information booths and food tents. Catering staff will serve some 500 pounds of hot dogs, 17,000 petite gourmet cookies, 500 jumbo cookies, 2,500 brownies, 4,000 bottles of water and much more.

Two Jumbotron television monitors are being set up on the Lawn, giving a view of the stage for onlookers stretching back toward the Rotunda.

UVa President John T. Casteen III will deliver the commencement address at 10 a.m. Sunday. Casteen has served as UVa’s president since 1990. He is stepping down Aug. 1 at the conclusion of his 20th year as president.

“This will be President Casteen’s last public address to the university community. It will be a bittersweet event for all of those who have worked with him these past 20 years,” UVa spokeswoman Carol Wood said. “President Casteen has led the university to uncommon heights, as well as through some extraordinarily difficult times.”

After his retirement, Casteen will raise money for Virginia’s community college system, will serve on the Board of Directors of Altria and eventually plans to return to UVa to teach.

During Casteen’s tenure, 93,820 students have received degrees from UVa. The number of students graduating this year has not yet been finalized.

Another bittersweet moment during this weekend’s ceremonies will come as UVa awards posthumous degrees to four students who died in the past year and who were nearly finished with their studies.

One of these, Yeardley Love, was a 22-year-old government major and member of the women’s lacrosse team. Her ex-boyfriend George Huguely, who was a fourth-year member of UVa’s men’s lacrosse team, is charged with first-degree murder in her death this month.

In honor of Love – and to draw attention to the issue of domestic violence – students, faculty and family will wear white ribbons during commencement. Organizers say they plan to distribute 25,000 ribbons at the event.

Another posthumous degree will go to Pierrette Stephanie Jean-Charles, who was poised to receive a master’s degree in public policy. Jean-Charles died in Haiti during the devastating earthquake that struck in January.

Joseph Luke Arwood, who was a fourth-year psychology major, also will receive a posthumous degree. Arwood died at his Sigma Phi fraternity house from an undisclosed cause, university officials have said.

The final posthumous degree will go to Scott Allen May, a 43-year-old student who was finishing up his fourth year at the McIntire School of Commerce.

On Saturday, novelist David Baldacci will deliver the valedictory address at 11 a.m. on the Lawn. Baldacci, a 1986 graduate of UVa’s School of Law, is the author of 19 thrillers, including “Absolute Power,” “The Whole Truth” and his latest, “Deliver Us From Evil.”

As with every graduation weekend in Charlottesville, hotels and restaurants will be heavily booked Friday through Sunday.