Last week nearly 5,000 graduates, guests, faculty, staff, administrators, trustees, and elected officials gathered on the CCBC Essex campus to celebrate a tradition of 69‑years: the Commencement ceremony. The event, beautifully choreographed and staged, honored a class of 3,148 graduates, with roughly 1,000 of them proudly walking across the stage to receive a diploma in person. This impressive scene always captures the spirit and energy of the graduates as well as the pride and joy beaming forward from all those gathered to celebrate them. And throughout the months of May and June, it is a scene that is replicated on 1,015 community college Commencement stages across the country.
For us academics, Commencement is the high point of the academic year. While success cannot be enshrined in a single day, these grand ceremonies highlight the best part of the work we do throughout the year. Multiply CCBC’s 3,148 students by 1,015 community colleges (some completion numbers are smaller; some larger), and you get approximately 1.5 million newly minted community college graduates ready to step onto a university campus or to go directly into one of the hundreds of thousands of jobs awaiting them nationwide.
Commencement is the day when we pay tribute to the talent, hard work, passion and resourcefulness of both our students and ourselves. As I stand on the dais looking down at a sea of mortarboards atop 1,000 smiling faces, the energy is palpable and the spirit contagious. And although there might just be a future rock star, astronaut, or Nobel Prize winner sitting in their midst, the real significance of this moment is the launch of new careers for the soon-to-be nurses, cyber warriors, engineers, welders, teachers, musicians…The attainment list is long and important not only to the graduates and their families but for the communities they will now serve.
For a recent speech, I borrowed a headline from a New York Times article that translates into deep meaning for a Commencement ceremony: “Some Wait for the Future; Others Shape It!” Our graduates definitely become the “shapers,” for the world tends to be run by those who show up! And show up they did! Count them in! The world we have created, and the roles we have defined for ourselves, are already evolving into new ones that these graduates will ultimately have to fill. Having already overcome personal challenges to earn a place on the Commencement stage, it is safe to assume they are ready to take the necessary next step to fill our proverbial big shoes. Doors will open for them; vistas will widen; and opportunities will grow. Commencement is the beginning, not the end.
Even after decades spent in the community college world, I never tire of celebrating this next generation of thinkers, doers, and quiet heroes of tomorrow as they take wing. Commencement Day makes us all proud; we get to claim victory on that day. Experiencing firsthand the joy and celebration of families—from 10-month-old babies to the 90-year-old great grandmothers—is a high in itself. Along with the diplomas these graduates carry across the stage are the hopes and dreams of their families and the promise they bring to their communities.
Commencement is a testament to the collective dedication, passion and commitment of every community college professional. We should all claim justifiable pride in another “Best Day Ever!”