2012 Commencement Speaker

U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe

Senator Snowe is the fourth woman in history to be elected to both houses of Congress and the first woman in American history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress. When first elected to Congress in 1978, at the age of 31, she was the youngest Republican woman and the first Greek-American woman ever elected to Congress. In 2006, she was re-elected to a third six-year term in the United States Senate with seventy-four percent of the vote.

Focusing her attention on efforts to build bipartisan consensus on key issues that matter to our state and the nation, Senator Snowe has built a reputation as one of Congress’s leading moderates. Congressional Quarterly recognized Senator Snowe for her centrist leadership in 1999, and she is co-chair of a bipartisan consensus-building group in the Senate called the Common Ground Coalition. In 2005, she was named the 54^th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. In 2006, Time magazine named her one of the top ten U.S. Senators.

In 2001, Senator Snowe became the first Republican woman ever to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee, considered one of the most powerful in Congress with jurisdiction over two-thirds of the entire federal budget. She is a member of the Subcommittee on Health Care, which oversees matters related to health insurance, Medicare and the uninsured.

As former Chair and current Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Senator Snowe has been a longtime champion of the engines that drive our economy and create jobs – America’s small businesses. And as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Senator Snowe continues to be a stalwart sentinel fighting on behalf of Maine’s fish and fishing communities and spearheading legislation to ensure they not only survive but thrive. Senator Snowe, as a leading member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, places the absolute highest of premiums on our national security and our extraordinary military and intelligence service members who courageously protect and defend us.

The University of Southern Maine is pleased to confer this honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, honoris causa, upon U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe for her passionate commitment to public service, a long career dedicated to the highest ethical conduct of our state’s and our nation’s governance, and her principled approach to leadership.