CCC students to celebrate degrees, certificates

CLOVIS — Hundreds of Clovis Community College students will celebrate earning a degree or certificate this school year during Friday’s graduation ceremony.

Scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Clovis Civic Center, students are looking forward to celebrating their academic accomplishments that are years in the making.

“I’m just excited,” said Selene Chavez, who earned her degree last fall but because CCC does not hold a ceremony in the fall, will have the chance to walk at graduation on Friday.

Chavez said her favorite aspect of attending CCC was the homey atmosphere the community college created for students.

“I think they have a lot of events and they make all the students feel included,” Chavez said. “I think there’s something for everyone there and anytime someone wants to be a part of campus life, there’s something they will fit into.”

Drake Davidson, who will receive a business administration degree on Friday, said he enjoyed the instruction he received at CCC.

“My favorite part was the teachers,” Davidson said. “They were really helpful and I could not have made it through this degree program without everyone having my back and giving me so much support.”

Chavez also said the support from the college’s staff was a hallmark of her college experience at CCC.

“I had gone to school before and I had dropped out so CCC was very helpful in getting me back into it and helping me with financial aid and with my advisor getting my degree plan ready and just making me feel hopeful that I would be able to finish,” Chavez said.

Students said they would miss several different things about the community college. For Hernan Navarro, it will be his fellow students.

“We are from a small community and our classes aren’t very big so you really get to know everyone and their families,” said Navarro, a Portales native. “And we were all there for each other whenever we all needed to be there for each other, because this is a rather stressful time but very rewarding and we all just stuck it out.”.

Besides Friday’s graduation for students from all academic areas, CCC will also hold special pinning ceremonies for graduates from the radiologic technology (6 p.m. today) and nursing (11 a.m. Friday) programs at the Clovis Civic Center.

“I do really like the fact that they do this for us because of the fact that it was very challenging and to me this was a great accomplishment,” said Navarro, an upcoming graduate from CCC’s radiologic technology program. “I reached my goal and it’s just nice to know that they do recognize us and all of our hard work.”

CCC’s commencement speaker on Friday will be Rep. George Dodge, D-Santa Rosa. Dodge said this will be his first commencement speech, calling it “a real honor.”

Dodge said his speech will have three main topics, focusing mainly on life experiences.

“It’s such a wide-ranging spread of ages that are graduating,” Dodge said. “They come from different life experiences and different reasons for being there and I’m going to expand on that a bit.”