School’s 49th Commencement Ceremony Celebrates Grads and Scholars

SOUTH ROYALTON, Vt. (May 1, 2025) — Vermont Law and Graduate School will close the academic year with 170 students participating in its 49th commencement ceremony, where juris doctor, master of laws and master’s degrees will be conferred.

The Honorable Patricia Whalen will serve as commencement speaker. A Vermont Law and Graduate School alum from the class of 1979, Whalen specializes in human rights, war crimes, gender violence in conflict, genocide, crimes against humanity and family law. A judge for more than 20 years, Whalen’s service included five years in the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina on both the First Instance and Appellate courts.

Whalen helped found the Rural Women Leadership Institute of Vermont, is a founding member of the Afghan Judicial Education Program and was an official expert representative of the International Association of Women Judges at The Hague Conference on Private International Law.

She now acts as advisor to the Center for Peacebuilding in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Cohen Center for Genocide and Holocaust Studies in Keene, New Hampshire, and the War Crimes Research Office in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the International Association of Women Judges’ Afghan Support Committee. Among other prestigious awards for her work, Whalen was named as a Vermont Law School distinguished alum in 2019.

“The strong advocacy I developed during my years at Vermont Law and Graduate School and my early years at Vermont Legal Aid helped lay the bricks to a path I am very proud to have followed,” Whalen said. “It is an honor to return in May to celebrate the hard work of the current class of students, and I hope to inspire them to maintain momentum in the pillars valued here as they enter the world to do good work in these challenging times.”

Other notable appearances during commencement weekend will be those of honorary degree recipients Judge Anisa Rasooli and Our Children’s Trust Co-Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel Julia Olson. Olson will deliver the Honorary Degree Recipient Lecture, titled “Children’s Climate Rights: Foundation of Democracy,” on Friday, May 16, at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Rasooli, now a Vermont resident, left her home in Afghanistan after the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2021. A senior member of the judiciary, she was the only woman to be nominated for Afghanistan’s Supreme Court and worked to empower women before the Taliban takeover. After her arrival, she was a fellow at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School.

Olson founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to empower young people in the fight for climate rights.  In 2023, the organization made history with “Held v. State of Montana,” the first children’s constitutional climate trial resulting in a landmark win for youth. Olson is the recipient of numerous awards and was named one of the world’s most influential leaders driving climate action by Time100 Climate.

“The education these graduates of Vermont Law and Graduate School received has equipped them with the tools needed to uphold the Constitution and serve as stewards of our democracy,” said Olson. “Now more than ever, we need lawyers with integrity and courage to center the rights of children and a life-sustaining climate in their pursuit of justice.”

VLGS’s 49th commencement will begin at 10 a.m. ET on the South Royalton Town Green.

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Vermont Law and Graduate School, a private, independent institution, is home to a law school that offers ABA-accredited residential and online hybrid JD programs and a graduate school that offers master’s degrees and certificates in multiple disciplines, including programs offered by the Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment, the Center for Justice Reform and other graduate-level programs emphasizing the intersection of environmental justice, social justice and public policy. Both the law and graduate schools strongly feature experiential clinical and field work learning. For more information, visit vermontlaw.edu, Facebook and Instagram.