UNE to Host Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration: Public Health and MLK’s Beloved Community

The University of New England will host its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration on Jan. 21, 2026, at noon on UNE’s Portland Campus for the Health Sciences. A watch party will be held on the Biddeford Campus in the Ripich Commons, Room 104. The event brings together the UNE community to honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of creating a Beloved Community.

The celebration features keynote speaker Melissa Hue ’15, M.P.H. ’20, director of the Office of Economic Opportunity for the city of Portland. Hue, a two-time UNE alumna, will share insights on continuing King's legacy of empowering community builders to address needs within their contemporary Maine communities.

King envisioned the Beloved Community as one grounded in mutual cooperation and shared responsibility. As he wrote, "At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed is 'community' — the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of [people] to assume a semblance of responsibility for [others]." The event will allow attendees to explore how this vision continues to guide efforts toward public health and community engagement today.


Discover Maine’s largest private University, the University of New England. UNE offers more than 40 bachelor’s degrees in needed fields, from the health professions, to the health and life sciences, to business and the humanities. We also offer 30-plus graduate, professional and doctoral degrees in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, social work and more. UNE learning happens online and on three beautiful campuses: on the shore in Biddeford, Maine, in-town in Portland, Maine, and at our study-abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco. Visit https://www.une.edu for complete information.