Latino Students and Parents enjoy First Private Graduation at Pacific

By Rhashad Pittman
(STOCKTON) -- Parents of Latino Students who graduated from University of the Pacific last month enjoyed their own private little ceremony with their sons and daughters.
On May 16, Pacific held its first graduation ceremony for Latino students, during which the speakers spoke both in Spanish and English. The ceremony was led by Inés Ruiz-Huston, who serves as Pacific’s Hispanic Community Outreach Coordinator. The first annual Latino Celebration of Graduation was part of the university’s recent efforts to reach out to the Latino community and boost enrollment of Latino students.
“We needed a bilingual ceremony so that some of the parents can appreciate it,” said Ruiz- Huston, who mentioned both languages were used in case some parents were more fluent in Spanish than English.
Twenty students participated in the intimate ceremony, which featured keynote speaker San Joaquin County Judge Jose Alva, who graduated from Pacific in 1970. Overall, 117 Latino students graduated from Pacific in May. Of the Latinos who graduated last month, 15 of them received their doctorates – either in education, pharmacy or physical therapy - and 13 students earned their master’s degrees.
One of the students who graduated was Mariana Garcia, a 27-year-old graduate student from Santa Rosa. She finished with a master’s degree in education, with an emphasis in curriculum and instruction. She said the Latino graduation was just as much for the students as it was for the local Latino community.
Garcia said it was good for others who would like go to college to see that “it can happen, you can do it and even your own peers will celebrate you.”
Latinos make up 10 percent of the more than 6,200 students who attend Pacific. The University has more than 4,600 students on its Stockton campus, while the rest attend its law school in Sacramento or dental school in San Francisco.
The ceremony came a day before the university’s campus-wide commencement ceremony and as the university prepares to offer two new programs in the fall that are geared toward the bilingual and Latino student population.
Pacific’s new Inter-American Professionals Certificate Program will be a joint program between the School of International Studies and other academic programs on campus that allow students to demonstrate competence in using Spanish and English in their field of study. The University will also have a bilingual, multicultural housing unit scheduled to open in the fall where students will only be allowed to speak Spanish.
The university’s new Hispanic Community Outreach program will focus on ensuring Latino students are prepared for college and supported while at Pacific, as well as provide a forum for community leaders to address issues that affect the local Latino community. Also, a Pacific Latino alumni club is starting up and will meet for the first time this summer.