Grads weather storm

The weather was an unpredictable beast during the three days of commencement ceremonies which hosted nearly 5,000 graduates in the Cal State Long Beach Central Quadrangle.

A characteristic cloudiness shrouded the ceremonies on Wednesday May 24, followed by rain on Thursday, which started to fall just as they began calling names during the first of two College of Liberal Arts ceremonies. A brutal heat set in Friday afternoon.

Director of Academic Projects Sharon Olsen said that in her 17 years overseeing graduation ceremonies at CSULB she could remember only one other involving a threat of rain.

"It rained slightly six years ago," she said. "It stopped before the ceremony."

Olsen praised facilities management for having the foresight to dry off all the chairs and cover them with plastic. She did not think the rain had an adverse effect on the ceremonies, saying they went "quite smoothly."

"It was enough that it was wet, but no one left," she said. "No one really seemed to be bothered by it."

The heat affected some students more than the rain.

"The sun was blazing down," said Matthew Green, a journalism graduate, who sweated through his clothing as a guest for the College of the Arts ceremony on Friday.

Green, who was soaked by rain in the College of Liberal Arts ceremony on Thursday, said he was shocked at the contrast in the weather. "It went from rain to like hell," he said.

Laurel Veit, a Film and Electronic Arts graduate, escaped the rain and the heat when she received her diploma during the College of the Arts ceremony on Friday Morning.
"On Thursday I said ëit can be overcast [on Friday], just please don't rain,'" she said. "You only graduate once."

Veit described the ceremony as small and informal. The college of the Arts has a reputation of being a bunch of class clowns she said. Film students wore leis made out of film, arts students displayed paper designs on their caps, dance students took off their shoes and one man stripped to his boxer shorts. CSULB graduate Richard Carpenter, pioneering member of the 1970s Grammy-award winning pop duo The Carpenters, was the keynote speaker and received an honorary doctorate during the ceremony.

James H. Gray, trustee emeritus of the California State University System, was also bestowed with an honorary doctorate during the College of Business Administration ceremony on Wednesday. Gray, a local banker and businessman, is best known for his unwavering commitment to education.

Nine separate two-hour ceremonies for the various colleges were each followed by individual receptions on the terrace level of the University Student Union. Though the total number of graduates remained relatively the same with 4,708 this year up from 4,704 last year, there were significantly more guests this year with an estimated 55,500 compared to 48,500 last year, according to Olson.