Commencement changes disregard students’ hard work
By The Poly Post, October 27, 2026
For a university that prides itself on student success and a culture of care, Cal Poly Pomona’s proposed commencement changes do the opposite.
The alterations CPP President Vanya Quiñones announced during the Oct. 14 Academic Senate meeting, including moving commencement from weekends to working days, removing the opening processional, shortening the length and numbers of ceremonies, and offering fewer guest tickets to graduating seniors disrespect students, their working families, staff and faculty.
The commencement dates were changed from May 21-23, a weekend, to May 24-26, Monday through Wednesday with starting times at 8 a.m., noon and 4 p.m., apart from one ceremony at 7:30 p.m. These are working days and hours. Now, because of the changes, parents will have to call off work or skip their child’s graduation completely.
More than 50% of CPP students are minorities and come from low-income families, who often work hands-on jobs with hourly wages that aren’t easy to get time off. It’s unfair to ask working families to call off work and hurt their income, especially when the university could proceed with the original dates.
With these new dates also comes another struggle: Graduating seniors and their family members will sit in peak bumper-to-bumper traffic in route to commencement. On the day meant to celebrate their academic achievements, they’ll end up stressed in traffic, wondering if they’ll even make it to campus on time.
Even if the families can attend and make it on time, the ceremony they watch will be ruined, as the processional, one of the biggest celebratory moments in the graduation ceremony, has been removed completely.
Students lose that red-carpet moment where they walk behind a top student from their home department, alongside the faculty who supported them at CPP, and past their smiling and waving families who’ve been with them since the very beginning.
Commencement is about students, for students and should be catered to students’ wants and desires. Quiñones and the university advancement team even highlighted in their presentation slides from the Academic Senate meeting that the ceremonies should prioritize student preferences. However, these changes feel like they’re created for the CPP administration, not the students.
Condensing the number of ceremonies from 12 to 10 and shortening their lengths just ensures the president, deans and other members of the platform party don’t have to sit in the sun as long. It doesn’t do anything for “elderly parents that are sitting there in the heat,” despite what Quiñones said at the Oct. 14 meeting.
Seeing as graduating seniors now only get six guest tickets instead of eight, there probably won’t be enough room to bring their abuelos, tíos and other extended family anyway.
Students didn’t get a say in the changes. Students don’t want fewer guest tickets. Students don’t want their procession taken away. Students don’t want to be pre-seated. Students don’t want to hear a speech from a random donor compared to a faculty member or McPhee scholar. And students don’t want to worry about their parents calling off work.
We want our voices to be heard, so much so a petition against these proposed changes already received more than 700 signatures as of publication, only four days after it launched. A rally in partnership with the ASI presidents is also in the works.
Quiñones hasn’t been in office for a year. She hasn’t even been at CPP long enough to experience a CPP graduation herself.
The Poly Post does not support these commencement changes and will continue covering the proposed changes.
Graphic by Joey Caraway
