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BIDDEFORD, Maine

UNE confirms 2015 commencement speaker and honorary degree recipients

The University of New England is pleased to announce Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, M.S., as its 2015 commencement speaker. Roosevelt will also be awarded an honorary degree along with Michael McCarthy, M.S. UNE’s commencement will be held May 16, 2015 at 10 a.m. at Portland’s Cross Insurance Arena (formerly known as the Cumberland County Civic Center).

Roosevelt is the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Northern New England, a social enterprise that helps people find stability through work in Maine, New Hampshire and northern Vermont. Roosevelt joined Goodwill in 2011 from the Boeing Company in Chicago, where she held the position of vice president of Global Corporate Citizenship. Her career has encompassed leadership positions in philanthropy, public policy, politics, the arts and higher education.

Roosevelt is the chair of the Roosevelt Institute in New York, serves on the boards of the Maine Community Foundation and Net Impact, is a fellow at the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and serves as a trustee at Roosevelt University. In 2013, she received the Queen’s Commissioners Medal of Merit of the Province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. This medal recognized her work carrying forward the legacy and values of her grandparents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, through the annual joint presentation of the Four Freedoms Awards.

Michael McCarthy has served as principal of King Middle School in Portland, Maine, for the past 27 years. He also currently serves as an adjunct professor in the educational leadership program at the University of Southern Maine and as a national faculty member for Expeditionary Learning. Previously, he served as principal of Bonny Eagle Middle School in Standish, Maine, and as assistant principal at Waterville High School. Throughout his career, he has authored numerous articles on school reform and given presentations throughout the United States and abroad.

McCarthy has won the Maine Principal of the Year Award twice and has been a finalist for the National Principal of the Year Award. He received the Maine Public Health Association’s Access to Health Care Award in 2008, and was included in Maine Magazine’s list of the 50 most influential Mainers in 2014.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.