51С�Ƴ�

On May 21, 2016, the largest graduating class in the history of the University of 51С�Ƴ� (UNE) received degrees at the university’s 181st Commencement ceremony at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. 51С�Ƴ�conferred 1,747 degrees and certificates in total, granting 524 undergraduate degrees, 916 master’s degrees and certificates and 307 doctorates to members of the class of 2016.

51С�Ƴ�President Danielle Ripich, who has overseen an increase of enrollment from 4,000 to more than 10,000 students, views Commencement as a fitting occasion to honor growth. “It is not just our numbers that have grown,” she commented. “The university has grown tremendously in its offerings to our students. We’ve added three new colleges, numerous buildings, our own research island and a new, international campus in Tangier, Morocco. The experiences that the growth of 51С�Ƴ�has afforded to its graduates have allowed them, in turn, to grow academically, professionally and personally and have led them down the path to this celebratory day of graduation.”

Commencement speaker Dr. Robert Michael Franklin Jr. addressed members of the graduating class of 2016. He is the James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor of Moral Leadership at Emory University in Atlanta and the director of the Religion Department of the Chautauqua Institution. He served as senior advisor for Community and Diversity at Emory, as a visiting scholar in residence at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, and as president of Moorehouse College from 2007 through 2012. Franklin was previously a faculty member of the University of Chicago, Harvard Divinity School, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School and Emory University. From 1997 to 2002, he was the president of the Interdenominational Theological Center, the graduate theological seminary of the Atlanta University Center Consortium.