PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Saturday, May 17 will be an important day for many County families and individuals as commencement will be celebrated for graduates of NMCC and UMPI. Traditionally, the ceremonies take place one week after the other, but on a few occasions, the graduations have occurred on the same date and time.
According to the academic calendars, that was to be the case again this year. However, since a number of area families have graduates at both institutions, the UMPI and NMCC presidents were sensitive that the timing for commencement exercises would make it impossible to attend both ceremonies.
“I was happy to meet with President [Linda] Schott to see if we could come up with a plan that would allow families to celebrate this important milestone with graduates of both the university and the college,” said Timothy Crowley, NMCC president. “While it was difficult to make the change from the traditional time of 10 a.m., the benefit to our students, their family and friends outweigh any inconvenience, so we changed the time of commencement for NMCC to 1 p.m.”
“I am greatly appreciative of President Crowley’s willingness to adjust the hour of NMCC’s commencement exercises this year,” said Schott. “We both understand how important this day is for students and their families and how much it means to our graduates to have all the significant people in their lives attend. To ensure that families and friends don’t have to choose between graduation ceremonies in the future, should this situation occur again, we agreed that the university would make the accommodation next time.”
Commencement exercises for UMPI will take place in Wieden Gymnasium at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 17. Commencement speaker will be nationally-acclaimed folk singer-songwriter Ellis Paul, who hails from Presque Isle. A reception will follow in the Campus Center.
NMCC’s commencement exercises will take place at The Forum at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 17. Commencement speaker will be Dr. William H. Cassidy, trustee of the Maine Community College System and a graduate of Northern Maine Technical College (forerunner of NMCC).
