Gov. Ralph Northam will address Longwood University graduates as the 2018 commencement speaker. The undergraduate ceremony will take place at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 19, on Wheeler Mall.

Joan Perry Brock, a 1964 Longwood graduate and an acclaimed philanthropic and business leader, will give the commencement address at the graduate ceremony on Friday, May 18.

“We are very proud to welcome Governor Northam, in his first year as governor, to deliver an inspirational charge to the graduates of Virginia’s third-oldest public university,” said Longwood President W. Taylor Reveley IV in a press release. “As someone who appreciates that our commonwealth was founded on public service and has called for bipartisan problem solving in the Virginia way, Governor Northam embodies the ideals of citizen leadership Longwood strives to instill in our students. He also understands that the unique heritage of places like Farmville—a true crossroads of history—endows us with a responsibility to shape the future and to leave our communities better than we found them.”

Longwood’s commencement speakers over the past five years have included Washington Post chief political correspondent Dan Balz, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who delivered the 2014 address.

The university’s graduate commencement will be held on Friday, May 18, at 5:30 p.m. in Jarman Hall Auditorium. In 2016, Brock, along with her late husband, Macon, made the largest gift in Longwood history: $5.9 million to create the Brock Endowment for Transformational Learning. The Brock Experiences are a growing group of immersive, citizenship-focused courses taught at sites around the United States.

Longwood is expected to confer nearly 1,000 undergraduate degrees and more than 170 graduate degrees and 24 graduate professional endorsements.