LBCC Celebrates Graduation

More than 1,000 graduates in caps and gowns marched through Veterans Memorial Stadium to celebrate their hard-earned degrees and certificates during the 2025 Long Beach City College commencement ceremony Thursday, June 5.

Crowds packed the stands on an overcast morning to cheer on their loved ones down on the field. College officials and this year’s valedictorian shared inspirational stories and words of wisdom during the event. Dr. Shaun Harper, provost professor for the USC Rossier School of Education, received an honorary degree.

LBCC students come from all walks of life and many have had real-life challenges. Superintendent-President Dr. Mike Muñoz, who could pass as a college student himself, recognized everyone in his speech.

“What makes LBCC so different is the lasting impact we have on our students. We see and value the whole person,” he said.

“That includes our Long Beach City College Promise students, our honor students, our formerly incarcerated students, and other-systems-impacted students, our disabled students, our LGBTQIA+ students, our unhoused students, our veterans, our international students, students raising a family, our career education students,” he said.

“This commitment is reflected in the real-life success stories that unfold here at Long Beach City College.”

Muñoz was the first in his family to go to college. A full-time dad, he navigated a lot at once, he said.

“Community college changed everything for me,” he said. “But the moment that still means the most, more than any other of my educational milestones, was my own graduation day. It was a day that I finally got rid of all my self doubt.”

Special speaker Lolita Mojica, LBCC’s 2025 valedictorian who maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA despite having anxiety, suffered tragedy at a young age.

“When I was four years old, I lost my mother in an act of violence,” she told the stadium from the podium. “That same fateful incident led to my father’s lifelong incarceration. As a result, I have lived with severe mental health issues pretty much my whole life.”

On her own since age 18, Mojica was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder and at one point could not work and received disability, she disclosed.

“And I don’t mean to be a downer,” she said. “I don’t share this for sympathy. I share it for context because what it took to get here, what it took for all of us to get here, deserves to be seen.”

Mojica worked 60 hours a week up until the pandemic – and then no hours when the outbreak hit. During this time, she reflected on her life and chose to enroll at LBCC to pursue her dream of becoming a freelance journalist.

“In that stillness, something unexpected happened as the noise of the world faded, the voice inside me got louder,” she said. “It was the voice calling me back to creativity. After all, writing has always been where I feel the most like me. It’s where I’ve expressed frustration, fear, joy, grief and everything else in-between.”

Mojica worked on the college’s Viking newspaper and her first article about the death of student Irving Alvarez, who had died from a car accident, received statewide recognition. She interned at KCRW, worked in the campus art gallery and found mentors and friends.

She said she marched in the same stadium 12 years prior when graduating from David Starr Jordan High School.

“Being here planted a seed of belief in me,” she said of her LBCC journey. “That I was still worth saving and so are you.”

She’s headed to Loyola Marymount University as a journalism major.

“And you know, I can’t really say what comes next, Mojica said. “But as David Lynch once said, ‘The more unknowable the mystery, the more beautiful it is.’”