ORONO, Maine -- University of Maine graduating student-athletes Naja Harvey (Women's Swimming) and Holly Stewart (North Vancouver, British Columbia) have each been nominated for the 2015 America East Woman of the Year award.

Harvey and Stewart help make up a field of 11 total female student-athletes who have been nominated for this year's accolade, which honors those who best exemplified a commitment to service, leadership, athletics and academics during their collegiate careers.

Wilson Adams from track & field received the 2015 Man of the Year nomination for the Black Bears.

To be nominated, student-athletes must have completed intercollegiate eligibility in her primary sport by the end of the 2015 spring season or received her undergraduate degree prior to the conclusion of the summer 2015 term and have a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 2.500 (4.000 scale).

The nominees will be narrowed down to three finalists on Wendesday, May 13 via a release on the conference web site with the America East Woman of the Year being announced at the conference's Annual Meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire on Tuesday, June 2.

The America East Woman of the Year will then be forwarded to the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee. The selection committee will select the top 10 winners in each NCAA division (I, II and III). From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the top three in each division. Finally, the members of the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics (CWA) will vote from among the top nine to determine the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year. 

In conjunction with the changes in the nomination process for the NCAA Woman of the Year award, the America East Woman of the Year award was established for the 2005-06 athletic season. Beginning in 2006, the CWA started receiving conference-designated nominees in lieu of the previous institution- and state-based nomination format.

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