Commencement

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Thank you to all the family and friends of the College of the Atlantic Class of 2023 that gathered near and far for our 50th commencement ceremony. Congratulations to our graduates! 

Commencement is a special time of year when students, families, faculty, staff, alumnx, and friends come together to celebrate the fruits of many years of hard work. Thank you so much to everyone who made this momentous occasion possible—you will always be a part of the COA community. 

College of the Atlantic 50th commencement keynote speaker Dr. Julietta Singh with several members of the graduating class.

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Julietta SinghProfessor, nonfiction writer, and decolonial feminist scholar Julietta Singh is our 2023 keynote speaker. Singh’s work engages the enduring global effects of colonization through attention to ecology, inheritance, race, gender, and sexuality. She works and teaches across the fields of postcolonial and decolonial studies, queer studies, the ecological humanities, experimental feminisms, and creative nonfictions. Her work has been published in journals such as South Atlantic Quarterly, Women & Performance, Social Text, Cultural Critique, and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Singh is the Stephanie Bennett-Smith Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Richmond and has been a visiting fellow at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Arizona State University’s Center for Imagination in the Borderlands, and Princeton University’s Humanities Center.

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Donald Soctomah, rear.Honorary Master of Philosophy degree recipient Donald Soctomah is a Native American Passamaquoddy historian, author, teacher, filmmaker, lecturer, storyteller, and community leader. He works with both the US and Canadian governments on the protection of culturally significant sites, artifacts, and knowledge, and serves as the tribal historic preservation officer for the Passamaquoddy tribal communities in Maine and New Brunswick. He is the Passamaquoddy Tribal Representative to the Maine Legislature, served 10 years in the Passamaquoddy Forestry Department, and was recently appointed by US President Joseph Biden to serve on the Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission. Soctomah holds a Guardians of Culture and Lifeways International Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums and was honored with the Constance Carlson Award from the Maine Humanities Council. He is the co-author of three award-winning children’s books and is a frequent consultant to the Smithsonian Institution, US Library of Congress, Maine State Museum, and Maine Historical Society.