2018 2018: Commencement 2018 speakers announced

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Southcoast Health System CEO Keith Hovan, and Hasbro Executive Bryony Bouyer to be honored at graduation ceremonies

UMass Dartmouth announced today that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, Southcoast Health System CEO Keith Hovan, and Hasbro Executive Bryony Bouyer will be honored at the upcoming graduation ceremonies on May 12-14.

“These are individuals of immense talent and vision who have leveraged their own educations into careers and lives dedicated to improving the quality of life for others,” UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Robert E. Johnson said. “They are groundbreaking exemplars for our students as they are inventing the futures of health care, business, and justice.”

Keith Hovan, President, and CEO of Southcoast Health System will receive the Chancellor’s Medal and deliver the commencement address at the graduate exercises on Saturday, May 12 at 10 a.m. at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield. Southcoast Health System is the largest employer in the region.

Bryony Bouyer, Senior Vice President Marketing Operations, Consumer Products at Hasbro, the Pawtucket, RI-based global play and entertainment company, will receive an Honorary Degree at the undergraduate exercises on Saturday, May 12 at 2 p.m. The 1986 graduate of the university’s Charlton College of Business will also deliver the Commencement address to approximately 1,500 graduates and their families and friends at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey will receive the Chancellor’s Medal at the School of Law commencement exercises on Monday, May 14 at 10 a.m. at the Main Auditorium on the main campus of UMass Dartmouth.

This will be Chancellor Johnson’s first commencement at UMass Dartmouth. Last week at his “Inventing Our Future” inauguration ceremony, he urged students to develop an “agile mindset” and “fight for your dreams.” “Individuals with an agile mindset will embrace change and transform the world,” he said. “They will inherently always seek ways to add and create new value.”

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Bryony Bouyer

Senior Vice President, Marketing Operations, Consumer Products Division

Hasbro

Bryony Bouyer serves as Senior Vice President Marketing Operations, Consumer Products at Hasbro. She is a 1986 graduate of UMass Dartmouth’s Charlton College of Business with a degree in marketing. She currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Charlton College of Business and is a former member of the Alumni Board.

Since stepping into the senior vice president post in 2000, Ms. Bouyer has been responsible for setting and executing a strategy aimed at aggressively expanding the company’s iconic brands from TRANSFORMERS to MY LITTLE PONY, NERF, TONKA, MONOPOLY, and HASBRO GAMING, into key consumer products categories touching every aspect of consumers’ lives.

Working closely with her incredibly talented Global Consumer Products team, Ms. Bouyer has introduced and instituted new practices that have been pivotal in ensuring that Hasbro-licensed products are of the highest quality, on-trend and resonate with all demographics from kids to teens, adults, and families. This successful formula can largely be attributed to the connections and relationships that she and the consumer products team have created with both retailers and licensees. Collectively, these groups have made significant strides in re-inventing, re-igniting, and re-imagining Hasbro brands.

From expanding the MY LITTLE PONY brand into more 70 than countries and all major consumer products and promotional categories to a continuously growing TRANSFORMERS consumer products portfolio that has delivered over $12 billion in retail sales since 2014, Ms. Bouyer has been an integral part of Hasbro’s successful licensing division. Hasbro has an exciting entertainment slate, including “Bumblebee” coming in December 2019; Ms. Bouyer has worked diligently with licensees and retailers to ensure Hasbro’s brands remain consistent on screen, in the aisle and everywhere in between.

Keith Hovan

President and CEO

Southcoast Health System and Southcoast Hospitals Group

Keith A. Hovan is President and Chief Executive Officer of Southcoast Health System, Inc., and Southcoast Hospitals Group, Inc., a subsidiary of Southcoast Health System. The hospital's group is comprised of Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, MA, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, MA and Tobey Hospital in Wareham, MA. The Southcoast Visiting Nurses Association, Southcoast Physicians Group, Southcoast Physicians Network and the Southcoast Accountable Care Organization are also subsidiary corporations of the health system.

Keith was appointed President and CEO of Southcoast Hospitals Group, Inc. in July 2008 and in July 2011 as President and CEO of Southcoast Health System, Inc. Previously, Keith served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Danbury Health System. Prior to Danbury Health System, Keith was employed at Montefiore Medical Center of New York, where he served as Vice President of Clinical Services for Henry and Lucy Moses and Einstein-Weiler Hospitals. Other assignments at Montefiore included serving as Associate Hospital Director and Administrator for Surgical and Emergency Services. Previously, he served as Director of Nursing for Surgical and Emergency Services, Nurse Manager of Emergency Services, and staff nurse at Bridgeport Hospital. He holds a Master of Science degree in Nursing from Sacred Heart University (graduating first in his class with an Award for Academic Excellence) and is a member of several professional associations.

Keith is the President of the National Association of Urban Hospitals, immediate past Chair of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association Board, and has represented the Massachusetts Hospital Association on the American Hospital Association Regional Policy Board for Region 1. Keith also serves as Chairman of the Yankee Alliance Supply Chain Solutions, LLC a Group Purchasing Organization and Blue Point Supply Chain Data Analytics, Inc. He was recently appointed to the Board of Bristol Community College by Governor Baker.

Keith co-chaired Governor Baker’s Healthcare Transition Team following the 2014 gubernatorial election. The team was charged with assisting with the development of priority action items related to healthcare in the commonwealth and for the new administration. Keith has been awarded numerous honors over his career, including the Margaret Cinchack Award for Excellence in Clinical Nursing, Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society, 1990 Emergency Nurses Association Nurse Manager of the Year Award, and in 2013 Becker’s Healthcare 130 Not-for-profit CEO’s to Know, the New England Arthritis Foundation 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and Sacred Heart University, College of Health Professions, 2013 Alumni Leadership Award.

Maura Healey

Attorney General

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Maura Healey was sworn in as Attorney General on January 21, 2015, pledging to lead the People’s Law Firm. Since taking office, Healey has tackled issues touching the lives of residents across Massachusetts including the heroin and prescription drug abuse epidemic, escalating health care costs, workers' rights and student loan costs. She has focused on strengthening consumer protections and on improving our criminal justice system.

Building on her promise to run an office that serves people across the state, Healey launched the Community Engagement Division in May 2015. The first-of-its-kind division brings the Attorney General’s Office and its work in neighborhoods and communities across the state. The Division has launched community office hours and has assisted with the rollout of several policy initiatives including the Earned Sick Time law and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.

Healey is an advocate for a more equal and inclusive workplace. In May 2015, she announced that her office would provide six weeks of paid family leave for all employees – making the AG’s Office the first state agency to offer paid parental leave. The office has also helped shaped state legislation that would expand opportunities for women in the workplace including Pay Equity and Pregnant Workers Fairness bills.

As a civil rights attorney, Healey is committed to ensuring that all residents are treated fairly. As the former head of the office’s Civil Rights Division, Healey was the architect of the state’s successful challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act and argued the case in federal court. As Attorney General, she has advocated for marriage equality and in support of bills to fight discrimination against transgender people. Prior to her election, Healey helped lead the Attorney General’s Office as head of the Civil Rights Division and as Chief of the Public Protection and Business & Labor Bureaus.

In those roles, she helped defend the Massachusetts buffer zone law, which protected women from being harassed at reproductive health care centers. She also shut down predatory lenders that were wreaking havoc on Massachusetts communities and oversaw a team that has worked with homeowners to help make their loans affordable. The program has gotten banks to modify thousands of home mortgages and stop hundreds of foreclosures.

Healey grew up the oldest of five brothers and sisters in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. Her mother worked as a school nurse, her father was a captain in the military and a civil engineer, and her stepfather taught history and coached high school sports. Her family roots are in Newburyport and along the North Shore, where her grandfathers worked at the post office and in the General Electric factory. From her family, she learned values of hard work, discipline, and the importance of taking care of others.

Healey graduated from Harvard College in 1992 and was captain of the women's basketball team. She played professional basketball in Europe before returning to Massachusetts to attend Northeastern University School of Law. She was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Early in her career, Healey clerked for Judge David Mazzone in the United States District Court in Massachusetts. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Healey was a junior partner at the international law firm Wilmer Hale (formerly Hale and Dorr), where she represented clients in the financial services, pharmaceutical, medical device, software, energy, biotechnology and professional sports sectors. She is a former Special Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, where she tried drug, assault, domestic violence, and motor vehicle cases.