COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE
The College of Engineering & Computer Science will stream a virtual celebration on May 15 at 6 p.m. to honor the 2020 graduates in engineering and computer science programs.
COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
To honor and celebrate the Class of 2020, and to recognize the agility and dedication of graduating students as they moved from in-person to virtual education mid-semester, the academic departments in the College of Health and Human Development are hosting virtual celebration events for its graduates. Click here for updated information about what virtual commencement-related events are happening in each of these academic departments: Child and Adolescent Development, Communication Disorders and Sciences, Environmental and Occupational Health, Family and Consumer Sciences, Health Sciences, Kinesiology, Nursing, Physical Therapy, and Recreation and Tourism Management.
COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES
The College of Humanities will feature a dedicated page on its website, with pictures of its graduates, plus a brief video message from faculty and chairs, congratulatory messages from alumni, and links to uplifting commencement speeches.
English
The Department of English is hosting a Zoom awards ceremony on Friday, May 15, at 11 a.m... This will be followed by a Zoom MA Hooding Ceremony at 2 p.m. All graduates in the department are invited to submit short, 15-second videos of themselves, including their names and options, which will be edited into one long video to be posted on the department webpage.
Linguistics/TESL
The Department of Linguistics/Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) is working with students to plan to plan a special virtual celebration marking their experiences at CSUN.
Jewish Studies
The Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program will be holding a Zoom graduation celebration on Monday evening, May 18, with its three graduating students! The recorded ceremony and PowerPoint will be posted on the Jewish Studies home page at https://www.csun.edu/humanities/jewish-studies.
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND MATH
Biology
The Department of Biology will be hosting a webinar announcing all names of its graduates.
Chemistry and Biochemistry
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is planning a video celebration that will be posted on the department’s landing page. Names of the graduating seniors in the three majors will be read and faculty will share stories.
Geological Sciences
The Department of Geological Services will hold a “virtual” ceremony for its graduating seniors and grad students from 2-3 p.m. on Friday, May 15. The department has ~16 people graduating. A Zoom for family, friends, faculty and students will include a short “state of the department” followed by department awards, then presentation of the undergrads. Grad advisors will give a short announcement on their MS students.
DAVID NAZARIAN COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Business Law
After final exams end, the Department of Business Law faculty is hosting a Zoom celebration for the recipients of its department awards and scholarships and seniors graduating with honors. Students can invite family and friends to join; photos and student-recorded videos from the past year will be shared.
DIVISION OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Library
The University Library is offering graduating students a virtual portrait in front of their choice of library backgrounds to commemorate their time as a Matador. Students provide a self-portrait in cap and gown or their best “dressed to impress” attire; the library does the Photoshopping, and students are free to share their portraits. Portraits are also being posted to social media with permission. Find out more here https://library.csun.edu/wish-you-were-here. In addition, the Library is excited to commemorate its 2020 Outstanding Student Awards and Library Student Scholarship recipients! Click here to meet the scholarship awardees and here to meet their outstanding student employees.
DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS
University Counseling Services (UCS)
UCS has four peer programs. Each of the peer programs are recognizing and celebrating their seniors in different ways (determined by the students in each program), such as creating certificates and presenting them during their Zoom weekly meetings and gathering quotes from their fellow peer educators and creating a word cloud or message. In addition, the Peer Programs Coordinator (who oversees all four programs) is collecting photos of seniors, creating a PowerPoint slideshow/animation during which they will be receiving their virtual medallion for participation, and having a virtual ceremony for all peers to recognize the seniors.
MICHAEL D. EISNER COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Deaf Studies
The Department of Deaf Studies is excited to celebrate its graduates!
All graduating students should look out for an e-card with details on a special congratulatory video created to celebrate your accomplishments, as well as information on posting photos using the hashtag #CSUNDeafStudies2020. (DSFT faculty and staff: Please visit the shared MyCSUNBox folder to submit congratulatory videos.) Look for information on the department’s Wolfson nominee and honored student on the Michael D. Eisner College of Education website soon.
Educational Leadership & Policies Studies/Doctoral Program
The Department of Educational Leadership & Policies Studies is pleased to recognize and celebrate its graduating cohorts. Congratulatory YouTube videos and virtual graduate certificates of recognition will be sent to each student, and a special congratulatory announcement will be featured on the ELPS website.
Educational Psychology and Counseling
The Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling is hosting multiple virtual celebrations by program!
- The School Psychology virtual celebration was held on Zoom on Thursday 5/7.
- Marriage Family Therapy is hosting a casual Zoom celebration on Thursday 5/14 at 12-1:30pm.
- School Counseling is having a live virtual celebration for graduating students and their families on May 14! Highlights will include a welcome, a short site-supervisor video, one favorite memory from the program presented by each student with a photo, the cohort's video montage and various remarks. After the celebration, students will be able to enter separate Zoom rooms for faculty to connect with students and their families!
- Early Childhood Education is planning a virtual celebration; further details coming.
Elementary Education
The Department of Elementary Education congratulates all of its graduates! Congratulatory postcards will be emailed to credential program completers, and an option-specific congratulatory postcard will be emailed to all M.A. graduates. Look for these special postcards on Facebook and Twitter.
Office of the Dean
The Office of the Dean congratulates all of the graduates of the Michael D. Eisner of Education! Look for a congratulatory note on the College website from the Dean of the College, Shari Tarver Behring, recognizing the various departments from which our students are graduating from. In addition, the Dean will provide a wide acknowledgment of students completing credentials and recognize the Undergraduate Dean’s Scholar.
Associate Dean of the College, Christine Hayashi will also congratulate students on the website. She will recognize the College’s Honored Student(s), students graduating with undergraduate and graduate Honors, and graduating scholarship recipients.
Secondary Education
To replace its annual Outstanding Student Teacher Reception, the Department of Secondary Education is creating a PowerPoint presentation, where each of the 17 outstanding student teachers will receive a written tribute by their University Supervisor and the name of their Mentor Teacher. All outstanding student teachers and the mentors will also receive an electronic certificate.
Special Education
The Department of Special Education is honoring its 40 graduates with a special 25-minute ZOOM Graduation Ceremony that was recorded on May 5. Featuring an IntersectLA-designed virtual graduation Zoom background, the celebration will include a Pomp and Circumstance intro, department chair greetings, a slide show featuring graduates, words of wisdom from a faculty member, and an ASL music video to celebrate (faculty will dance, waive hands).
Each student will receive a graduation kit with a customized note, CSUN pennant, MDECOE swag and graduation decorations. A Padlet where students, their families and friends, and faculty can leave messages of congratulations and inspirations, as well as pictures, has been designed.
Graduates are encouraged to set up their decorations before they watch the ceremony and invite family and friends to join in as well. While it is not the real deal, we felt putting some time and effort into this would be a worthwhile endeavor and hopefully bring some cheer and celebration to our graduates!
MIKE CURB COLLEGE OF ARTS, MEDIA, AND COMMUNICATION
Cinema and Television Arts
Activities in the Department of Cinema and Television Arts are in-person events such as the Film and TV senior showcases, which have all been delayed until fall when hopefully our seniors and graduates can be honored in our normal tradition.
Communication Studies
The Department of Communication Studies is creating a recorded video with graduating senior messages and photos as well as faculty messages and video recordings. Art Release forms are provided for use of all images.
Journalism
The Department of Journalism will celebrate its graduates utilizing its social media accounts, including Instagram, its weekly Monday Memo email newsletter to students and its departmental website.
Music
The Department of Music has a Music Awards and Scholarship Convocation that will be running online on May 14th in the late part of the day. A possible online event for seniors a few days following was discussed, but it was determined that seniors will want to be celebrating with family and any friends that are able to get close to them at that time. The department has been in close contact with its complete student body in music during this time. Make sure to tune in to your awards convocation!
THE TSENG COLLEGE
The Tseng College is planning virtual celebrations for its graduating students on a program-by-program basis! All program managers are reaching out to their respective program academic leads to plan a small celebration for each program cohort that they have graduating in Spring/Summer 2020.
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Anthropology
The Department of Anthropology is planning an online end of the year celebration, complete with a montage set to music with photos of the graduating seniors and all of their names announced. Students and faculty will be invited to share memories and stories about the graduating class, and awards will also be announced at this event.
Criminology and Justice Studies
To honor its graduating class, the Department of Criminology and Justice Studies (CJS) created a special celebration video featuring keynote speaker Gil Garcetti, two-term former District Attorney for Los Angeles! The video also includes well wishes from several of the CJS faculty and Dept. Chair Dr. Vickie Jensen, a message from Dr. Yan D. Searcy, the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the announcement of multiple student awards. Congratulations to the CJS class of 2020!
Geography
The Department of Geography is purchasing hoodies for all the graduating seniors and holding an event in the Fall to coincide with the campus commencement. A contest is being held among the students for the design of the hoodie. All faculty are making a concerted effort to virtually attend the senior thesis presentations which begin next week.
History
The Department of History (Patricia Juarez-Dappe, Clementine Oliver, and Pepper Starobin) is creating a virtual commencement celebration, which is being sent to students and posted on the department’s Student Canvas page.
Political Science
The Department of Political Science will be sending department awards by mail.
Psychology
The Department of Psychology will feature a section on its website for graduating students who received awards and recognizing masters students who are graduating. The Center for Achievement in Psychological Science (CAPS) is also presenting info about graduating seniors on their Instagram page.
Social Work
The Department of Social Work plans to record a video featuring pictures and names of graduates presented in their cohort, as well as brief speeches from the chair, a student-elected faculty member, and two student-elected speakers. The video will be posted on a private YouTube channel no later than the end of May.
Urban Studies and Planning
The Department of Urban Studies and Planning is holding a short Zoom session for its graduate students (piggy backing on their last culminating project class) and a number of faculty.