ORONO – He told the impatient graduates to be wary of careless talk. She told them to think like patient gardeners.

Two commencement ceremonies and two speakers were the order of the day Saturday as the University of Maine awarded 1,950 degrees in Alfond Arena.

Robert Edwards, former president of Bowdoin College, addressed a morning ceremony. Novelist Tess Gerritsen spoke in the afternoon.

An estimated 11,000 relatives and friends of graduates attended the university’s 205th commencement exercises.

Edwards, who retired from Bowdoin in 2001, spoke of Maine’s literary tradition, which includes Henry David Thoreau and E.B. White.

“Language and thought, their quality and precision, are closely allied,” he said, “and this clear, robust use of the English language has been at the core of the peculiar contribution the people of New England have made to American democracy.

“To read E.B. White,” Edwards said, “is to scrape the most cherished barnacles from one’s writing and sand down to the wood any glossy varnish of attempted eloquence.”

He discussed the importance of language and pointed out the detrimental impact of “careless, inaccurate and cheap” language in the public arena, on talk radio, television and the Web.

In the afternoon, Tess Gerritsen of Camden urged graduates to read a newspaper every day and to think like gardeners.

“Don’t waste a single planting season,” Gerritsen said. “Plant the seeds of your future now by nurturing every interest, no matter how irrelevant it may seem. Be a sponge and absorb information – you never know when it might come in handy.

“And always have something new growing, something you’ve never tried to grow before,” she said. “You never know. It could end up being the most beautiful plant in your garden.”

Ivan J. Fernandez, professor of plant soil and environmental sciences and a 1978 UM graduate, is this year’s distinguished professor at UM. He urged graduates to follow poet Robert Frost’s advice and take the road less traveled.

“Your generation will indeed make America the ‘superpower’ of the 21st century,” he said, “not by armaments, but by solving the problems of today and leading the world by example for a future that offers sustainable prosperity, environmental quality, clean energy and social justice.”

Degrees were awarded during the morning ceremony to graduates from the College of Business, Public Policy and Health, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Lifelong Learning.

At the afternoon ceremony, degrees were awarded to graduates from the College of Education and Human Development, the College of Engineering, and the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture.

The class valedictorian, Erik Perkins of Albion, is a physics and mathematics major. He plans to enroll in a University of California Santa Barbara doctorate program in theoretical physics.

Salutatorian David Lapointe of Durham received a mechanical engineering degree. He has accepted a job with Goss International in Durham, N.H., and will join the work force as an engineer.

Honorary degrees were awarded at the morning ceremony to Edwards and Native American studies scholar and Wabanaki historian Nicholas Smith of Brunswick. During the afternoon ceremony, honorary doctorates were awarded to alumni Richard and Mildred Giesberg of Los Angeles.

Community leaders, the Giesbergs are known for their work in helping Ethiopian Jews emigrate to Israel.