While thousands of families arrived at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the main beginning of the University of Southern California on Thursday night, the scene had the feeling of the usual university event that was held there: a football game.
“Churros! Water!” The sellers shouted while they made their way beyond the sitting guests, some grabbing pompoms. Then, the USC’s fighting song began to play when the night fell, and the Olympic torch that rises on the coliseum was lit for the cheers.
The show sacrificed a turn of the Rah-Rah page for last year’s graduation controversy at the USC.
In May 2024, USC was widely criticized for its management. In the midst of the turbulence of the protests of the Campus on the Israel War in Gaza, President Carol Folt canceled the main ceremony about security concerns, along with the speech of Asna Tabassum, Valedictoriana, who had expressed pro-palestinian opinions.
The graduates of the USC walk to the field during the 2025 start ceremony at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
As the four -day graduation ceremonies increased on Thursday night for the 2025 class, USC made important changes in a long -standing tradition. It could be said that the greatest adjustment: abandon the starting park park on the lungtime campus, and its majestic red brick buildings and mature vegetation of the cavernous coliseum.
USC, as it does with a long -term hero practice, announcing in February that it would not be validitoria and no accompanied speech. Instead of selecting a senior graduate based mainly on academic grades, the speaker student, Meghan Anand, was chosen among the applicants with averages of 3.5 qualification and presented celebration trials on his class.
However, for a university that turns on in its Trojan traditions, the beginning had already forced the leg to bend with the times.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 meeting was relocated to the colosseum because the size of the place allowed a series of socially distanced events. Last year, after the beginning of the main stage was canceled, the university hastened to organize a “celebration of graduates of the Trojan family” in the Colosseum. He presented a show of drones, fireworks and free hats of the Appany of rapper Travis Scott. The feelings were mixed.
Before Thursday’s event: the centerpiece of a day graduation celebration that began on Wednesday, concludes on Saturday and includes more than 20 celebrations in and near the campus, the times interviewed five older people graduated on committee.
The graduates of the USC look at a drone show at the end of the 2025 graduation ceremony in the Colosseum.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Some said they would have preferred to have the ceremony on the campus, but the perspective of a night celebration that would include another elaborate drone show and a massive exhibition of fireworks still appealed.
Michael Young, 21, said he was “excited by that drone show” and knew that by the soccer games that the coliseum would provide an “atmosphere of celebration”, but it would be the vibration of Alumni Memorial Park.
“If we had it there, it would feel nostalgic,” he said. “Because, you know, we walk along that main road of the campus all the time, right? Sometimes we enter that library, right? We want to grow in the steps exactly we graduate.”
Several students also criticized the administration’s decision not to appoint a VALEDICTORIAN, or let that person speak. Senior Nicole Conception said the decision was “just another way that USC really leakes what they want to show everyone.”
“They are really, really trying to control it this year, which rubbed me in the wrong way,” he said.
However, others pointed out that the pandemic had frustrated the graduations in person of its high school. They were simply happy to attend any type of meeting that recognizes their achievements. “Our high school graduation ceremonies were affected by Covid, so I am excited that we obtain a great event,” said Jennie Duong, 22.
In a statement, USC said the beginning moved to the adjacent stage of the campus this year in part because he received comments from the graduates of the graduates who went to the celebration of last year “and loved the show and the fireworks.” He was also transferred to the collateaum because the event “has overcome all the places on our campus.” The University said he waited 50,000 guests on Thursday night; The assistance figures were not immediately available.
Regarding the decision to give up appointing a VALEDICTORIAN, the University has indicated that other universities have also withdrawn the title of Valedictoria, and that it is watering to “celebrate the achievements of a range of cables of our graduate career of her career.
The event in the Colosseum represented a kind of factor for USC, at least one way. The director of “Wicked”, Jon M. Chu, graduated from the School of Cinematic Arts of the USC, delivered a speech on Thursday night after the university knew its 2024 start speech even before the trailer Park ceremony.
The filmmaker Jon Chu launches the “Fight On” sign after an honorary doctoral duration of the USC’s starting ceremony.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
“His work is not simply to inherit a world, but to reinvent it and establish the bases for whom we are advancing,” Chu told graduates. “
The cloth and tradition
The starting meetings of the main stage campus in Alumni Park, which about 75 years ago, were not short in the Paantro and the Old World Tradition that date back to decades.
The event would generally begin with a processional that saw students leave the Bovard administration building with heraldic flags for the various academic units of the University, followed by deans and other high -level university leaders in accumstance, “he played.
“He [was] Very traditional, “said Annette Ricchiazzi, who worked for the USC in the duration of events in the 2000s and helped produce starting events. He offered” the feeling of what a graduation ceremony should be. “
In the Colosseum on Thursday, part of that tradition was exhibited. There were, for example, students with flags. And there was a procession of dignitaries.
But there were elements not typically seen at the beginning, although they could have a familiar bone for any fan of the USC football team, which plays in the Colosseum. Like those food vendors.
Ricchiazzi, a USC student whose two daughters also graduated from the university, denounced the changes that broke with tradition. “The beginning is not a football game, and it shouldn’t be,” he said.
The students and alumni, Ricchiazzi among them, said they believed the decision to celebrate the event at the Colosseum by partially by the fact that the place, which is equipped with metal detectors, sacrifices a high level of security. On Thursday, guests were only allowed to bring transparent bags to the stage, a policy deployed for other events there.
Lawrence Sung, 22, said he bristles at the USC security doors, along the perimeter of his campus for the beginning of the school year, but in the case of the beginning, the understanding of the needs of narrow restrictions. “For a great event like this, for graduation, I see the value in that,” he said.
When asked if the Security Conerns played a role in the decision to transfer the beginning to the Colosseum, USC referred the Times to a statement that said that the event was hero there because the capacity of the place adapted to their needs. The university said it would not reveal details of its security plans.
Lloyd Greif, a prominent student of the USC Marshall School of Business, said that in 2021, the year of the beginning socially distanced in the Colosseum, two of his children graduated from the Business School, one with a degree. The Greifs attended the event, and worked well.
“I liked the stage,” said Greif, who founded the Marshall School Business Studies Center. “Like Memorial Park, he has a lot of history and tradition, so does the Angels Memorial Coliseum.”
USC graduates encourage as the duration of the 2025 graduation ceremony is recognized in the Colosseum.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
A more recently tradition that has not changed: affinity start celebrations.
Despite the orientation of the Trump Administration Department that suggested celebrations of the Black, Latino and Barthew cultural affinity group during the beginning were illegal forms of segregation and cancellations stimulated in other parts of the United States, USC.
‘We are super excited’
Lavanya Sharma, 21, who was selected to be carrier of the flag, was one of the people in the procession that began the coliseum celebration.
His parents are immigrants from India, and Sharma is the first in the family to graduate from an American university. The Colosseum, he said, seems suitable for a starting place.
“It’s strange that students receive access to the field,” he said. “And I have really begun to see the Colosseum as part of the USC. I have been there for many … Soccer games organized by USC.”
Conception, which is a Filipino American, can relate. She is also the first person in the family to graduate from an American university. He made plans to attend several ceremonies, including a meeting for students of Filipino ancestry that, according to her, is known as “P-Grades.”
But she said she had told her parents that it was all if she wanted to go at the beginning.
His parents still have it.
“They were like,” no, we would love to do it. We are very excited to see how it looks, “said Conception.
The Times staff writer, Javeeed Kaleem, contributed to this report.
