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AUD to hold Sixteenth Commencement Exercises

DUBAI - The American University in Dubai (AUD) will hold the Sixteenth Commencement Exercises on Sunday, 12 May in the Sheikh Rashid Hall of the Dubai World Trade Center, under the Patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice- President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai .

An audience of around 5,000, including several dignitaries and other prominent members of the local UAE Community, will attend the Ceremony at which 430 undergraduate and graduate students from nearly 50 different nationalities will receive their American-accredited degrees in the fields of Business Administration, Engineering, Visual Communication, Computer and Information Technology, Interior Design, International Studies, and Communication and Information Studies.

At this year’s Commencement, AUD has the pleasure to host two speakers Arianna Huffington, Chair, President, and Editor-In-Chief Of The Huffington Post Media Group as well as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

Arianna Huffington, a nationally syndicated columnist and author of 13 books, launched The Huffington Post in May 2005, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. In 2006, and again in 2011, she was named to the TIME 100, TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. Huffington has made guest appearances on numerous television shows, and serves on several boards that promote community solutions to social problems.

Antonio R. Villaraigosa is the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles. He was first sworn in as Mayor on July 1, 2005. His second term began on July 1, 2009. He is currently President of the US Conference of Mayors. Leading the nation’s mayors, Villaraigosa has advocated for innovative public policy reforms to create jobs, improve the country’s public schools, and expand investment in America’s transportation infrastructure.

As Mayor of Los Angeles, Villaraigosa has pursued an agenda of making Los Angeles the safest big city in America, building a 21st century transportation system, achieving fundamental and far-reaching education reform, spurring economic development by eliminating government red tape and streamlining the City bureaucracy, and making Los Angeles a national model of sustainability and green growth.