Most of the University of Maine’s 2,000 graduates crossed the stage at University of Maine commencement events on Saturday, held again in Harold Alfond Sports Arena following a $50 million renovation last year.
Students were participating in four separate graduation ceremonies this weekend, according to the university, including a graduate ceremony on Friday, two undergraduate ceremonies on Saturday and a ceremony at the University of Maine at Machias on Sunday.
Timothy Simons, a television and movie actor known for his role in HBO’s “Veep,” addressed undergraduates in Orono at both ceremonies Saturday, which were divided by college.
Students from the College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences, the Maine Business School and the Division of Lifelong Learning graduated in the morning, and students from the College of Engineering and Computing, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Education and Human Development graduated in the afternoon.
Simons, who grew up in Readfield and graduated from UMaine with a theater degree in 2001, reassured graduates that it’s OK not to know what you’re doing and encouraged them to take everything in their lives seriously and to be open to new ideas from everyone around them.
“When I came to UMaine, I had truly no idea what I should do with myself day to day, much less what I wanted to do with my life,” he said.
He said he spent much of his time on campus smoking cigarettes outside Hauck Auditorium and doing psychedelics by the Penobscot River, finding a passion for theater and a sense of community while at UMaine.
“To be an actor, you need to know a little about a lot, you have to be versatile, and I found the beginnings of that in my education here,” he said.
Ruth Griffith, an economics major from Parkman, was the 2026 undergraduate valedictorian. She wrote an honors thesis analyzing local economic trends and led service initiatives like the Maine Day Meal Packout, according to the university.
Two students shared the role of undergraduate salutatorian: biomedical engineering student Isabelle Irani and physics and math student Andrii Obertas.
UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy gave shout-outs to three graduating students who went above and beyond in their academic pursuits: Eddie Nachamie, who turned a class paper into a public-facing map tracking PFAS policy; Hannah Maker, a nursing student who worked with a public health Initiative in Washington County; and Wyatt Fessler, who led a project developing low-cost microdroplet generators.
“This class has shaped this university, and I’m inspired by the spirit of innovation, creativity and collaboration that you carried with you,” Ferrini-Mundy said.