Associate Justice Joyce Kennard of the California Supreme Court will speak at the School of Law commencement at the University of California, Davis, on Saturday, May 24.

The law school will award 10 Master of Laws degrees and 164 Juris Doctor degrees, and its ceremony is the first of 11 commencements at which the university will confer a total of about 6,000 degrees through June 15.

Kennard, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1989, has received numerous awards from legal and other organizations recognizing her leadership and dedication as a jurist, her scholarship, and her contributions as both a woman and a person of color to the legal profession and community.

Born in West Java, Indonesia, Kennard and her widowed mother were held in a World War II internment camp. After Indonesia became independent, she and her mother emigrated to New Guinea and later to Holland. In 1961, Kennard came to California, where in 1974 she graduated from the University of Southern California with a Juris Doctorate and a master's degree in public administration.

Beginning her legal career as a deputy attorney general in Los Angeles, she first joined the bench as a municipal court judge in Los Angeles County in 1986 and progressed through the Los Angeles County Superior Court and state court of Appeal.

Also speaking at the law school ceremony will be Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff and Juris Doctor candidate Maggy Krell.

Christopher M. Heikaus Weaver of Salina, Kan., who attained the highest academic standing among Juris Doctor candidates, will be presented with the School of Law Medal and $500.

The law school commencement will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Recreation Hall. Other ceremonies will be held as follows:

• School of Medicine -- 6 p.m. on Friday, June 6, Health Sciences Quadrangle;
• Graduate Studies -- 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 12, Recreation Hall;
• School of Veterinary Medicine -- noon on Friday, June 13, Recreation Hall;
• College of Engineering -- 6:30 p.m. on Friday, June 13, Recreation Hall;
• College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences -- 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, Recreation Hall;
• Graduate School of Management -- 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, Freeborn Hall;
• Division of Biological Sciences -- 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, Recreation Hall;
• College of Letters and Science -- 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 15, Recreation Hall.