Commencement draws thousands as new era begins
For five days this week, Cal State Long Beach became a landscape of black gowns and gold stoles. More than 9,200 students crossed the stage during 13 commencement ceremonies while families — carrying handmade signs, bouquets and cutout photos mounted on sticks — filled a sea of folding chairs erected on George Allen Field.
In the crowd, someone was always crying — and always cheering.
The ceremonies doubled as a handoff. Former President Andrew Jones introduced his successor, President Loren J. Blanchard, who delivered his remarks in gold sneakers, a choice that put him in good company among the graduating class.
"The commencement ceremony is far more than a conferral of a hard-won honor," President Blanchard said. "It is an announcement of your limitless potential."
Blanchard asked graduates to carry that potential with intention — to remember the faculty and staff who guided them, and to pay it forward. “Lift others as you have been lifted,” he said. “Help someone else accomplish their dream.”
On campus for the first time in five years, Commencement 2026 was held May 17-21, with as many as three ceremonies a day, beginning at 8:30 a.m. and ending long after the sun had set. Out of the 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students eligible to participate, the students walking the stage reflected the vibrant diversity that defines Cal State Long Beach.
The mood ranged from reverent to raucous. Decorated caps told stories of sacrifice, of first-generation pride and the relief of being done. One graduate crossed the stage in a full Mandalorian helmet, fist raised.
Brenda Hernandez, a Consumer Affairs student, had waited 20 years to cross that stage.
Hernandez began college in 2006. Then came marriage, three children and years of checking the same box on school registration forms: “some college.” When her twin daughters were 9, heading into fourth grade, they noticed.
“Mom, how come you always put ‘some college’?”
Hernandez told them she had never finished.
“Why not? You’re smart.”
She told them they were right and made a promise: By the time they entered sixth grade, she would be checking a different box. She'd do it for them, she said, and for all those in her family, including her parents, who'd never been able to check it either.
For two years, while working full-time and co-parenting her children, she commuted from San Diego, leaving before dawn to make it to class by 8 a.m., then driving back afterward for her afternoon shift as a family support specialist at a nonprofit. She studied on the road, recording herself reading lecture slides the night before and replaying her own voice during the drive north.
She earned straight A’s and was chosen to address the crowd at Nuestra Graduación, ’s Latinx celebration and one of several cultural graduations held ahead of commencement.
"I started 20 years ago," she said during her speech. "I am not embarrassed to say it."
She had to pause for applause.
The oldest person to walk was Robert S. Aronson, a retired Long Beach Public Works official who turns 88 next month. Aronson earned his Master of Public Administration from in 1989 but never attended his commencement. He said the idea had never occurred to him until he spent an evening ushering a event at the , where he has volunteered for years.
"It was wonderful, it was colorful," he said. "I just said to myself, wouldn't it be nice if I could find out if I could walk."
He could. On Commencement Day, he marched alongside students decades younger.
"It was a high,” Aronson said. “I can't say it any other way. I was in heaven."
As for Hernandez, she said her three children became a vital part of her process. The older girls offered study advice during late-night finals and cheered her through her final paper.Often in the car, they’d listen alongside her as recorded lecture notes played in the background.
“What are we learning about today, Mom?” they would ask.
In August, when Hernandez’s twins enter the sixth grade, she will become the first in her family — though not remotely the last — to mark a different box on their registration forms. She is even eyeing her master’s.
“Dreams,” she said, “don’t have expiration dates.”
