CSUN Brings Commencement Back to Campus : Exercises: A shuttle service will be provided to take the 5,600 graduates and their friends and relatives from scattered parking areas to the stadium.

Graduation at Cal State Northridge will return to campus this spring following last year’s problem-plagued ceremony, which was held at the Hollywood Bowl.

Commencement is scheduled to be held May 25 at 10 a.m. at the stadium, on the university’s North Campus. Seating will be available for about 20,000 students, parents and other guests, said commencement planner Heidi Levy.

No tickets will be needed for this year’s event, Levy said. Seating was so limited last year at the Hollywood Bowl, which holds 17,960 people, that tickets were rationed at three per student.

Levy said problems last year, which included an hours-long traffic jam that delayed the arrival of participants and guests, including the university president, James W. Cleary, had little to do with the change in plans.

“The desire was always to hold it on campus whenever it could be,” Levy said.

In 1989, construction at the Northridge campus led administrators to turn to the Hollywood Bowl. The commencement traditionally had taken place on grass near the Oviatt Library in an area that remains torn up by construction to expand the library.

Students objected both to the off-campus location and to a starting time of 7 a.m., which was later changed to 11 a.m. Campus administrators denied student allegations that the graduation had been moved off campus and scheduled at an earlier hour to try to prevent rowdiness and drinking that had begun to be evident at graduation ceremonies.

On May 26, 1989, traffic backed up onto the Hollywood Freeway as guests and participants tried to squeeze into the Hollywood Bowl parking lot. Graduation was delayed more than an hour while traffic officers cleared a lane for Cleary.

This year, Levy said, parking will be spread around the campus and shuttle buses will take people to the North Campus stadium.

CSUN expects about 5,000 undergraduates and 600 master’s candidates to march in graduation this year, Levy said. About 4,000 students participated last year.

Many schools and departments schedule receptions before and after graduation, she said, so campus administrators hope that students will park near those receptions. rather than near the stadium, where parking will be limited.

Details of who will congratulate the students and shake their hands have not been worked out yet, she said. In the past, students objected when they learned they would not get to shake Cleary’s hand on graduation day. Levy said the number of graduating students probably will make that impossible again this year.