Portland State University awards honorary degrees to acknowledge individuals who have achieved outstanding scholarship or artistic accomplishments or performed distinguished public service during their lifetime. Please join us in celebrating our 2023 Honorary Degree recipients!

Margaret L. Carter, '73

Margaret L. Carter is the first African American woman elected to the Oregon legislature. In 1984, she was elected to represent District 22 in North/Northeast Portland. She is the author of Oregon’s landmark divestiture laws from apartheid South Africa and the act to create a state holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Throughout her legislative career, she worked to ensure that the state’s education systems remained effective and well-funded. Carter was also an advocate for Oregon’s most vulnerable, crafting legislation in social justice, civil rights, health reform, mental health parity, environmental protection, and public school funding and consumer education. In 2009, Carter was named deputy director of the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Her distinguished public and professional careers have been highlighted with numerous awards and honors, yet she says that of all her accomplishments, she is proud to have raised nine children and to be helping with her grand-children and great grand-children.

Lionel Clegg, B.S. ’97, M.S. ’99

Lionel Clegg is a 24-year veteran teacher in the Portland Public School District. He has served his entire career as an educator at his alma mater, Woodlawn Elementary School. During his tenure at the school he has taught at various grade levels, but the majority of his years have been spent teaching first grade. While at Woodlawn, Clegg started a weekly boys mentoring program called Boys of Distinction. He also taught parenting classes through The Black Parent Initiative.

Clegg was an adjunct faculty member at Marylhurst University where he taught preservice and practicing teachers. He appeared in many episodes of Inside Woodlawn, a two-year series produced by KGW that documented the teachers, students and community of Woodlawn. It was from this series that he gained national attention and was recognized for his teaching and promoting equality in education when he was spotlighted on a segment of the Today Show.

In 2021, Clegg was named OnPoint’s Elementary Educator of the Year. Clegg feels that teaching is his purpose and each time he walks into the classroom he knows that it is an opportunity to help support and lead the students in his community.

Robin Morris Collin

Robin Morris Collin has served on the Governor’s Racial Justice Council of Oregon as co-chair of the Environment and Equity Committee, Chair of the Oregon Commission For Women, and Oregon Commission For Black Affairs, and she was the founding chair of the Oregon Environmental Justice Task Force.

Throughout her long career, Collin has combined scholarship, service, and activism in the areas of Sustainability, Environmental Justice and Energy. Her work and service demonstrate a unique ability to conceptualize contemporary challenges and develop equitable solutions with a broad perspective including law, government, and business partnerships at federal and state levels.  

“Throughout her career, Ms. Collin has worked tirelessly to ensure vulnerable communities – particularly communities of color – are not disproportionately impacted by pollution, waste disposal, hazardous sites and natural disasters, and other problems,” said Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

She will join EPA’s senior leadership after 38 years as a professor of law she retires Professor Emerita after professorships at four major law schools, Tulane Law School, McGeorge School of Law, University of Oregon, Willamette University College of Law and visitorships at Washington & Lee Law School, Pepperdine Law School.

Charles F. Sams III

Charles F. “Chuck” Sams III was ceremonially sworn in as the 19th director of the National Park Service on Dec. 16, 2021, by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

Sams is Cayuse and Walla Walla and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon, where he grew up. He also has blood ties to the Cocopah Tribe and Yankton Sioux of Fort Peck.

Sams most recently served as Oregon Governor Kate Brown's appointee to the Pacific Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NW Council) where he held a position as a council member from March to December of 2021. Prior to joining the NW Council, he served as executive director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

For 30 years, Sams has worked in tribal and state government, and in the non-profit natural resource and conservation management field, with an emphasis on the responsibility of strong stewardship for land preservation for this and future generations.

Sams is a veteran of the U.S. Navy where he served as an intelligence specialist. He holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Concordia University and a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples Law from the University of Oklahoma School of Law. He lives with his wife, Lori Lynn (Reinecke) Sams and their youngest daughter in Alexandria, VA.

David and Christine Vernier

David and Christine Vernier met at Ohio State University, lived in Cleveland, and then moved to Oregon in 1973. At the time, David was a high school physics teacher and Christine was a social worker. They founded Vernier Software (now Vernier Science Education) in 1981, producing software, sensors, books, and lab equipment for science teachers. The company continues today and now employs more than 100 people and has customers in 140 countries. Both are still active in the company.

 Christine served as a member of the Portland State University Board of Trustees from 2013 to 2021. David and Christine have served on many other local non-profit boards, including Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Oregon Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, OMSI, The Library Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and the All Hands Raised Advisory Council. David and Christine were honored to receive the Simon Benson Award for Philanthropy from PSU in 2014.

In 2015, the Verniers established endowed scholarships for first generation STEM and social work students attending PSU. Christine and David are especially pleased to be lead sponsors of the new Vernier Science Center at Portland State, which will provide new lab and classroom space and special features to encourage more students of color and indigenous students to pursue science careers.