To: President Snyder
Provost Poon
Dean Clark
December 11, 2024
Dear colleagues,
The announcement last week that in 2025 Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, (LLS) will not have its traditional separate commencement ceremony caught our faculty by surprise. Until last year this separate ceremony had always been held at the Westchester campus providing our students a unique reminder that we are part of the larger Loyola Marymount University. But this year LLS students and faculty will be merged in a mega, university-wide, commencement to be held at the BMO Stadium on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at 11 a.m.
We want to be clear upfront that we are fully committed to increase the integration of the law school into the larger LMU community. However, LLS has had its own commencement ceremony for over a century, and this is essential to maintaining the school’s identity; an identity that benefits LMU and that has been built with great care and labor since 1920.
Within LMU, the Law School has a unique place − not to mention its own campus − and role to play. Having our own commencement ceremony makes it possible to honor it. It makes it possible to acknowledge each graduating student, individually, something that will not be possible with the mega ceremony. Each can walk on stage and have their name announced. That allows their families to celebrate, individually, their accomplishment, something that is particularly treasured by the families of our many first-generation students. And having alumni present the diplomas to their relatives who are graduating, bonding various generations or graduates to each other and the institution, is one of the most cherished traditions for our legacy students.
Having our own commencement connects faculty with the alumni’s families, something that will be necessarily missed in the vastness of the BMO Stadium. Our own commencement bonds the students to each other, too. Each year, our day and evening students select speakers amongst the cohort who address the entire audience and provide an account of the class’s experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. This moment makes each ceremony unique, reinforcing the identity of the class and their collective link to the school.
Having our own commencement builds legacy and tradition and connects us to the city in a unique way, too. Unlike other law schools in the city, LLS is deeply rooted in Los Angeles. Most judges, prosecutors, and attorneys in the county are our graduates. The connection we have with that community is unique and pays off, both in terms of donors and employment of our graduates. We need to protect and nourish those connections and our own commencement is a key part of it. We train students to join the legal community, to become attorneys, judges, and politicians. Because we have our own commencement, we also have our own key-note speaker. Typically, it is a distinguished member of the legal community, one whose speech is about law and what it means to serve it. That speaks to our alumni and their families way more than a musician or an actor could do.
It is not too late for LLS to still organize its own commencement, as we did for over a century. We urge LMU and LLS leadership to work towards that goal. However, should that not be feasible, we ask Dean Clark to take steps to organize, in collaboration with LMU, a commencement ceremony for our students at another time. That is the right thing to do, for our school and for LMU as a whole.
Respectfully,
The undersigned members of the LLS faculty.