LEWISTON – Literary scholar Pauline Yu told Bates College graduates that “commitment to service and social change” is in the college’s – and now their – DNA.

Yu, a specialist in East Asian languages and cultures, received an honorary degree along with former Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford, Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp and climate-change authority Warren Washington at Sunday’s ceremony in Lewiston.

In Waterville, Colby College’s commencement speaker was alumnus Robert Diamond, an economics major who went on to become president of Barclay’s PLC, the London-based financial services company.

Bowdoin College in Brunswick and the University of Maine Law School also held commencement exercises over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.