University of Southern Maine

Honorary Degrees and Distinguished Awards

Each year at Commencement, the University recognizes the significant accomplishments and contributions of individuals through the presentation of honorary doctoral degrees. These degrees and awards are a means by which the University community celebrates those values that are at the core of the academic mission of a public higher education institution: the commitment to intellectual curiosity and integrity, the pursuit of new knowledge and understanding, and the application of one’s talents and abilities to the benefit of fellow citizens.

Ellen Goodman
Dr. Brian Iwata
Iain Kerr

Doctor of Humane Letters

Ellen Goodman is a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and author who has spent her career writing about America’s societal changes. Her syndicated column appears in over 300 newspapers, and is the basis of six books, including Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times. She is also author of Turning Points, a book on social change, and The New York Times bestseller, I Know Just What You Mean, on women and friendship.

Ms. Goodman began her career as a researcher for Newsweek magazine at a time when only men were the magazine’s reporters. She began reporting for the Detroit Free Press in 1965 and in 1967 for The Boston Globe, where she began writing her column in 1974.

A 1963 cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College, Ms. Goodman returned to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow, where she studied the dynamics of social change. She was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she studied gender and the news, and taught at Stanford as the first Lorry I. Lokey Visiting Professor in Professional Journalism.

Whether writing about the issues working mothers face, or life on Chebeague Island where she is a longtime summer resident, she provides readers with food for thought. “Ellen Goodman is one of America’s most provocative and intelligent journalists,” said USM President Selma Botman. “Her writing provides a distinguished model of thoughtful, politically engaged analysis for USM’s graduates as they face the challenge of applying their education in the service of their region, the nation, and the world.”

Ms. Goodman won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1980. Other awards include the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award; the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; The National Women’s Political Caucus President’s Award; and the Women’s Research and Education Institute’s American Woman Award. In 2008, she received the Ernie Pyle Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

The University of Southern Maine is honored to award the honorary doctor of humane letters degree to Ellen Goodman.

See related press release

return to top

Doctor of Humane Letters

Dr. Brian Iwata is one of the leading scientists in the field of behavior analysis. As such, he has conducted groundbreaking research on behavioral aspects of developmental disabilities, eating disorders, and self-injurious and aggressive behavior.

Dr. Iwata is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Florida, and a senior research scientist at the New England Center for Children in Southborough, Massachusetts.

A licensed psychologist and certified behavior analyst, Dr. Iwata is also a noted educator. In the past decade alone, more than 80 of his undergraduate students have gained admission into top graduate programs, and half of the recipients of the B.F. Skinner Award from the American Psychological Association have been his former Ph.D. students.

“Brian is our best,” said University of Florida Psychology Department Chair Martin Heesacker. “His synergistic integration of research, undergraduate education, and graduate education and advising serves as a model for how faculty of a top-tier research intensive institution should function.”

Nor is his influence limited to undergraduate and graduate students. “His extraordinary career in the field of behavior analysis has profoundly influenced each of the faculty within the School Psychology Program at the University of Southern Maine,” said USM Professor of School Psychology F. Charles Mace.

Dr. Iwata has been called upon to consult with the departments of health, mental health, and mental retardation in more than 25 states, including Maine. He is the former chief editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and chair of the Human Development Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Florida State University and previously held faculty appointments at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and at Western Michigan University.

Awards for his work include the D.F. Hake Award for Contributions to Basic and Applied Research from the American Psychological Association, the R.B. Dillon Award for Excellence in Research from the American Association in Mental Retardation, and the Award for Distinguished Service from the Association for Behavior Analysis.

The University of Southern Maine is honored to award the honorary doctor of humane letters degree to Dr. Brian Iwata.

return to top

Doctor of Humane Letters

Many scientists have led research expeditions to all corners of the globe. Few, however, have been as supportive as Iain Kerr of rigorous scientific research that not only creates new knowledge but improves the public’s understanding of our environment and the need to conserve it.

Mr. Kerr, a native of Scotland who holds a bachelor of education degree, with honors, from the University of London, began his career in 1983 as a volunteer research assistant at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida. Today, he is vice president and CEO of Ocean Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to research which leads to a greater understanding of the ocean environment and the creatures within it, and that contributes to the conservation of whales. He is a pioneer in the development and use of benign research methodologies that have transformed our knowledge of whale populations worldwide. In addition, he played a key role in a successful effort in Papua, New Guinea to establish a 1.25 million-square-mile sanctuary for marine mammals.

Mr. Kerr also was the leader of the renowned “Voyage of the Odyssey,” a multi-year program designed to gather the first-ever baseline data on levels of synthetic contaminants throughout the world’s oceans. The project is named for the 93’ steel-hulled research vessel, Odyssey. This “research platform” enables scientists to spend long periods at sea, using whales and pelagic fish as indicator species for measuring the impact of contaminants on the health of the species and the seas they inhabit. “The results,” said Gilbert M. Grosvenor, chairman of the board of National Geographic Society, “will be far reaching, affecting all wildlife, including humans in addition to the whales.”

USM, proudly, is a partner in helping to analyze and process information from this research. Data from the Odyssey’s five-year voyage around the globe is housed in USM’s Wise Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology. USM scientists used the data to publish recently the first assessment of the impact of chromium (Cr) on Sperm whale populations around the world.

PBS, the Discovery Channel, BBC, and NHK are among the many outlets that have brought Iain Kerr’s contributions to a broader audience. As USM Professor John P. Wise, Sr., said, “He has not only made original contributions toward documenting and understanding ocean pollution and its implications for the future of humanity, but also for supporting public education to bring about change in people’s attitudes toward the dangers of environmental pollution.”

As biologist Roger Payne says of Kerr: “Iain is a facilitator, a facilitator of science. Again and again it has been his efforts that brought us through. But nothing in his formal training could possibly have prepared Iain for the level of success he has achieved. It has come from hard work. Not many people in our field have had as wide an effect, and most of them have been recognized many times over. That’s why I’m so pleased to see Iain finally receive this long-overdue, and richly deserved, honor.”

The University of Southern Maine is pleased to award Iain Kerr the honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

return to top

back to Commencement home