Speakers announced for UMPI graduation

    PRESQUE ISLE – President Don Zillman has announced that Dr. Glenn Gabbard, associate director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education and the Director of Project Compass, will address the graduates at the 2008 University of Maine at Presque Isle Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 10.     Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degrees will be presented to Chief Justice Leigh Saufley, head of Maine’s statewide court system, and Donald and Mary Sanipass, preservers of Native American culture.
    Gabbard has made it his life’s work to support advancements in research, policy and practice in higher education so that the greatest number of students can succeed in college. As director of the Project Compass initiative, he works to ensure that underserved students in New England stay in college, experience success and earn their four-year degrees.
    Gabbard grew up in American Samoa, and, coming from a hard-working, low-income background himself, he gained an understanding of the challenges and opportunities many people face in terms of access to higher education. Through his work with NERCHE and Project Compass, Gabbard strives to make the environment within and among higher education institutions throughout New England more responsive to the needs of the students in their areas.
    Gabbard earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Sonoma State University; a master’s degree in linguistics from the American University; and a doctorate in higher education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He served as a fellow with the American Council on Education in 1991 and is a faculty member in the higher education administration program at UMass Boston.
    The Honorable Leigh Ingalls Saufley has served as Maine’s Chief Justice since 2001, upholding the law as an appellate judge and the head of Maine’s statewide court system while blazing trails for women in the legal profession.
    In 1990, she was appointed to the Maine District Court, and three years later, to the Maine Superior Court. In 1997, she was appointed an associate justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and in December 2001 she was sworn in as the first female chief justice of Maine’s highest court.
    Mary Sanipass and her late husband Donald are revered leaders of the Mi’kmaq Tribe in the Presque Isle area and, for decades, they have worked to keep their tribal heritage alive by sharing cultural and artistic traditions. The two, married for 53 years before Donald passed away in July 2007 at the age of 78, are nationally-acclaimed basketmakers and photographers.
    Their work has been shown in the Smithsonian Institute and the Heard Museum in Phoenix and featured in several anthropology texts.