{"id":29379,"date":"2015-02-11T17:35:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T22:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2015\/02\/11\/award-winning-columnist-returns-to-necc-to-address-graduates\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T20:12:26","slug":"award-winning-columnist-returns-to-necc-to-address-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/02\/11\/award-winning-columnist-returns-to-necc-to-address-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning Columnist Returns to NECC to Address 2015 Graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_10575\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2015\/02\/Helen-Ubinas.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10575\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10575   \" alt=\"Helen Ubinas\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/media-old\/2015\/02\/Helen-Ubinas-300x300.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10575\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Award winning Philadelphia Daily News columnist Helen Ubi\u00f1as will be the featured speaker at NECC&#8217;s 2015 commencement.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.philly.com\/dailynews\/\">Philadelphia Daily News<\/a> columnist Helen Ubi\u00f1as, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.necc.mass.edu\/\">Northern Essex Community College<\/a> alumna, will be the featured speaker at Northern Essex\u2019s 53rd Commencement on Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 11 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>Ubi\u00f1as is a former editor of the <a href=\"https:\/\/observer.necc.mass.edu\/\">Observer<\/a>, NECC\u2019s student newspaper, who says she \u201cfound herself and her future\u201d at Northern Essex. She attended Northern Essex in 1990 and 1991 while living in Methuen and transferred to Boston University, where she earned her bachelor\u2019s degree. She went on to earn a master\u2019s from Trinity College in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>Ubi\u00f1as was a longtime reporter and columnist for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courant.com\/\">Hartford Courant<\/a>, Connecticut\u2019s longest continuously published newspaper, where she was awarded a number of honors, including a team Pulitzer Prize for breaking news in 1999. In 2000, she became the Courant\u2019s first Latina news columnist. In 2007, she was one of 12 US journalists awarded the prestigious John S. Knight journalism fellowship at Stanford University. She\u2019s also received several awards since becoming a columnist in Philadelphia, including the top honor in column-writing at the 2014 Keystone Press Awards.<\/p>\n<p>In June, Ubi\u00f1as wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/articles.philly.com\/2014-06-25\/news\/50829067_1_college-debt-college-students-making-college\">column<\/a> for the Daily News, in which she shared her own educational journey and her family\u2019s commitment to education. The \u201cfirst and only one\u201d in her immediate family to graduate from college, she reflected on her niece and nephew who were following in her footsteps. She wrote \u201cThere are multiple solutions to fixing poverty, but for my family and others, education is the best way to break the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was after reading this column that NECC President Lane Glenn was inspired to invite Ubi\u00f1as to address the graduates. \u201cClose to half of our students are first generation college students,\u201d said Glenn. \u201cWith her successful career and her passion for higher education, Helen is a role model for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The commencement will be held under a tent on the quadrangle on the college\u2019s Haverhill Campus and approximately 1,100 graduates are expected to receive certificates and associate degrees.<\/p>\n<p>With campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, MA,Northern Essex Community College offers over 70 associate degree and certificate programs as well as hundreds of noncredit courses designed for personal enrichment and career growth. More than 7,400 students are enrolled in credit associate degree and certificate programs on the Haverhill and Lawrence campuses; and another 6,700 take noncredit workforce development and community education classes on campus, and at businesses and community sites across the Merrimack Valley. Northern Essex is the only state college located in the lower Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts. For more information, visit the website at www.necc.mass.edu.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Daily News columnist Helen Ubi\u00f1as, a Northern Essex Community College alumna, will be the featured speaker at Northern Essex\u2019s 53rd Commencement on Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 11 a.m. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Award-winning Columnist Returns to NECC to Address 2015 Graduates - NECC News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/02\/11\/award-winning-columnist-returns-to-necc-to-address-graduates\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Award-winning Columnist Returns to NECC to Address 2015 Graduates - 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