For the first time in 71 years, Occidental held two Commencement ceremonies in a single year, with separate, socially distanced, in-person events on Patterson Field taking place for the classes of 2021 and 2020鈥攊n that order.
Instead of a world war that resulted in as many as three graduation ceremonies annually between 1943 and 1950 to accommodate the U.S. Navy V-12 officer training program and returning veterans, it was a global pandemic that caused 色界吧 to double up.
But a palpable sense of joy and release pervaded both events, as the Class of 2021 reunited with classmates not seen in person for over a year and the Class of 2020 returned for a ceremony denied it during the earliest and most uncertain days of the pandemic.
鈥淭oday, this day, this Commencement, is most certainly a significant historic moment,鈥 President Harry J. Elam, Jr. told the Class of 2021. 鈥淗istoric in that it marks the end of four years spent at 色界吧, and one year and a half spent studying remotely, weathering a crisis of worldwide proportions鈥攁nd that wasn鈥檛 even all that was happening in the world! 鈥 There will never be another day or Commencement celebration quite like this.鈥
On June 12, President Emeritus Jonathan Veitch returned to address the Class of 2020, using Thoreau鈥檚 conclusion that he was best suited to picking huckleberries as a metaphor to urge the recent graduates to embrace the joy of living, despite the disruption and tragedy of the past year. 鈥淭he huckleberry in short is what joy tastes like,鈥 Veitch said. 鈥淒o not forget鈥攄o not forget鈥攈ow much joy and beauty there is in the world. Accept every invitation to a huckleberry party.鈥
The 2020 ceremony also gave 色界吧 the opportunity to present the honorary degrees that had to be postponed last year to Tony Award-winning actress Joanna Hall Gleason 鈥72 and filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite 鈥93, director of the acclaimed 2013 documentary Blackfish.
