NACME CEO to Speak at Engineering Commencement

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Irving Pressley McPhail, president and chief executive officer of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc.

Irving Pressley McPhail, president and chief executive officer of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc., is the 2015 commencement speaker for the College of Engineering.

Engineering commencement for the class of 2015 will take place at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 9, in Barnhill Arena on the University of Arkansas campus.

McPhail was named the sixth president and CEO of NACME in 2009, after joining the council in 2007 as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Under McPhail's presidency, NACME received the 2012 Claire Felbinger Award for Diversity from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

Prior to joining NACME, McPhail founded and served as principal of The McPhail Group LLC. He served 15 years as a college president or chancellor at The Community College of Baltimore County, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, and LeMoyne-Owen College. McPhail also served as chief operating officer of the Baltimore City Public Schools. Under his leadership, The Community College of Baltimore County was named one of 12 Vanguard Learning Colleges in the U.S. and Canada in 2000 by the League for Innovation in the Community College, won the Bellwether Award in the category of Planning, Finance and Governance in 2000 and was awarded the PBS O'Banion Prize for Leading the Way to Change in Teaching and Learning in 2003.

McPhail has held tenured full professorships at three colleges and universities and served as an affiliate or visiting professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Pennsylvania, and Morgan State University. He is the co-editor of "Teaching African American Learners to Read: Perspectives and Practices," published by the International Reading Association in 2005 and the author of more than 50 journal articles, chapters, monographs, and technical reports.

McPhail serves on the board of directors of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation, the Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America, and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

McPhail earned a bachelor's degree in development sociology at Cornell University and a master's degree in reading at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He earned a doctorate in reading and language arts at the University of Pennsylvania as a National Fellowships Fund Fellow and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in 2010.

Find additional information about the College of Engineering commencement.