PHOTO BY: VIVIANA GARCIA
STORY By MARCO URIAS
STAFF WRITER
Cypress College’s 55th graduation ceremony will be held on May 20, 2022, and will be in person.
The 1969-founded college held remote, online graduation ceremonies in the years 2020 and 2021 in order to adhere to NOCCCD and state-mandated policies of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the CC commencement web page, students who graduated in those years will be able to cross the stage for the 55th graduation ceremony.
Michelle Flores graduated as an English major from CC in 2021 and will be participating in the 55th graduation ceremony. She said this ceremony will be unique because CC is finally coming together after years of being remote.
Flores said her parents and 2 sisters see her graduation as an accomplishment and will be in the audience to see her cross the stage. “I feel like, it’s, to them, it would mean another big milestone in my life because I’m finally graduating. I’m finally transitioning into a CSU,” she said.
Flores said she will be transferring to CSU Fullerton which has hosted transfer workshops for CC students and offers BA and graduate-level degrees.
Gary Gopar, professor and chair of the music department, Conn-Selmer artist, and trumpet icon wrote that professional musicians will be performing an arrangement specifically written for the CC 55th graduation ceremony.
The COVID-19 pandemic not only affected traditional graduation ceremonies for students like Flores and her family.
CC enrollment rates fell by an overall drop of 6%.
African American CC student enrollment had the biggest drop by 13%, according to data from the ‘Institutional Effectiveness Report’ and president JoAnna Schilling’s state of the college report to the NOCCCD board of trustees.
CC, voted Long Beach’s number 1 community college, awarded a total of 4,519 degrees and certificates in 2019-2020 which Schilling described as record-breaking. This number was lower the following year. IER data shows that CC was rated one of CA’s best colleges by ‘Intelligent.com’, awarded 1,726 associate degrees, and 1,915 certificates, totaling a sum of 3,649 in 2021.
The deadline to apply for 2022 graduation was Feb. 18. Students graduating from CC, which has 3 faculty members that were awarded National Cohort (Gisela Verduzco, Yanet Garcia Padilla, and AnneMarie Ruelas) could order their cap and gown and find a countdown timer on the CC commencement web page.
