The University of Southern Maine will award an honorary doctorate to Henry A. Giroux, an internationally recognized education scholar and distinguished alumnus, who will also deliver the keynote address at the university’s 146th commencement ceremony.
Commencement will take place at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 9 at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
Giroux, a leading voice in critical pedagogy and public scholarship, is the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies and serves as the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. He is also the director of the Center for Scholarship in the Public Interest.
A USM alumnus, Giroux earned a Bachelor of Science in junior high education from Gorham State Teachers College in 1967.
“We are deeply proud to count Henry Giroux among our alumni,” said USM President Jacqueline Edmondson, who studied under Giroux as a graduate student at Penn State. “His life’s work reflects our university’s highest ideals: a belief in education as a transformative human enterprise, a commitment to democratic values, and an unwavering dedication to the public interest.”
Giroux was named by the Toronto Star in 2007 as one of the “12 Canadians Changing the Way We Think.” Over the course of his career, he has authored or coauthored over 65 books, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. He has also contributed to media outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon and Truthout.
Details about the 2026 commencement ceremony are available on USM’s Commencement website.