University of New England

The 2008 Honorary Degree Recipient(s) are John McKernan (Doctor of Humane Letters), Dr. Victor McKusick (Doctor of Science), and Vincent McKusick (Doctor of Laws). 

Dr. Victor A. McKusick, Honorary Doctor of Science

Dr. Victor A. McKusick, University of New England Board of Trustee member, has a lifetime of contributions to the field of medicine.  He received his M.D. at Johns Hopkins Universiry School of Medicine in 1946 and since then has held several faculty and leadership appointments at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He was appointed as Director of the Division of Medical Genetics in 1957 and held this position until 1973 when he became Physician-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

He has held his current appointment as University Professor of Medical Genetics since 1985 and has been appointed at  the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine since 1999.  He has also been a Physician emeritus at Johns Hopkins Hospital since 2007.  His professional activities include being the Editor-in-Chief of the publication Medicine from 1985 to the present as well as the Co-Founding editor and co-editor-in-chief of Genomics from 1987-2002.  He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome (1986-1988)and the Founder President of the Human Genome Organisation (1988-1990) as well as teh Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science (1990-1992).

Dr. McKusick is currently serving on the University of New England Board of Trustees on the Academic Affairs and Research and Development committees.

Vincent McKusick,  Honorary  Doctor of Laws

In 1977, Governor Longley appointed Vincent McKusick Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, the first such appointment directly from the bar since the appointment of Chief Justice Prentiss Mellon in 1820. As Chief Justice, McKusick had responsibility for managing Maine’s entire court system as well as for presiding over its highest appellate court. Over the years, he had been deeply involved in modernizing the rules of procedure for the Maine courts, serving on rules committees appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court and co-authoring two editions of the classic work on Maine Civil Practice.

Vincent’s fourteen and a half years as Chief Justice were marked by significant improvements in the structure and operation of all courts. Many of those improvements came about through the involvement of volunteer efforts from within the community, such as Maine’s pioneering Mediation Program and its Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program.

For his public service in the courts, Vincent received the American Judicature Society’s Herbert Harley Award in 1982 and the Neal W. Allen Award for Community Leadership of the Greater Portland Chamber of Commerce in 1988. In 1991, Cumberland County named its newly expanded courthouse for the Chief Justice. Vincent was the 1999 recipient of the National Center for State Court’s Paul C. Reardon Award, given to those who have made outstanding contributions to the administration of justice nationally and to the work of the National Center.

For over thirty-five years, Vincent has also been involved in legal pursuits at the national and international levels. He has served on the governing boards of both the American Bar Association (ABA) Journal and the American Bar Foundation, as well as in the ABA House of Delegates. He has led groups of state and federal judges on “People to People” visits to both China and the former Soviet Union.

During 1990-91, his fellow chief justices elected Vincent president of the National Conference of Chief Justices and chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts. He has served and continues to serve on the Council of the American Law Institute, and also has served on the governing boards of the American Philosophical Society, the American Arbitration Association, and the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society.