Graduation Gets Off on the Right Foot : Education: CSUN breaks with tradition, holding several smaller commencement ceremonies.

The dramatic change in Cal State Northridge graduation ceremonies was succinctly summed up by a bespectacled professor Friday as he donned his mortarboard to join a formal entry procession:

“No more graduation from hell.”

The school, after years of being swamped by problems from trying to deal with big graduation crowds, abandoned the traditional campuswide commencement that recently had swollen to the point where it was held in the Hollywood Bowl. Instead, separate ceremonies are being held this year for each of the eight CSUN schools--three ceremonies Friday and five next week.

Judging by Friday’s events, it was a good idea.

Open roadways, manageable crowds, polite clapping and a refreshing fog replaced tangled traffic, horrific mobs, drinking problems and wilting heat.

Even though there are 6,355 graduates this year, compared to 4,400 last year, individual students could be recognized at the podium by name, by audiences that got to sit near the stage instead of in a stadium.

Tony Rodgers, the university’s plant manager, was visibly relieved. Last year, 27,000 people showed up at the campus stadium, which seats only 20,000. In 1989, when graduation was held at the Hollywood Bowl, those who couldn’t find parking places abandoned their cars in a massive traffic jam on the Hollywood Freeway rather than miss the ceremony.

This time there were plenty of empty parking spaces and more than enough folding seats for everyone who attended the School of Education’s ceremony at 8 a.m. on the grass outside the University Club. “The only hitch we’ve had is that the fog made everything damp and we had to wipe off all 2,000 chairs,” Rodgers said.

Heidi Levy, an administrative assistant, said, “We even remembered to change the timer so the sprinklers wouldn’t go on in the middle of it all.”

Even the crowd was better prepared. Leonide and Teresa Lanctot of Beecher Falls, Vt., were seated with a big gray comforter wrapped around their legs to fight off the early morning chill. “This is all just lovely,” she said, waiting for a glimpse of their son, Leo, who was among the 320 who received degrees.

Lt. Mike Sugar, who managed the crowd with 10 other university police officers, noted that “last year we were carting them away” because of the heat. He pointed proudly to the main thoroughfare: “And you probably notice: No traffic hang-ups.”

Roy Sveiven of Ventura left his house at 5:30 a.m. to make sure he would arrive by 8 a.m. to see his son, Shane, graduate. “I knew that in the past it was awful, but we got here in an hour,” he said. “This has been handled very well.”

Prof. Elizabeth Brady, who gave the keynote address at the School of Education’s ceremony, received the largest applause of the day when she commented on how smoothly things were running. Brady, who has taught at the school since 1955, told the crowd she had stopped going to graduation ceremonies when they became large and impersonal. “I felt so badly because the parents couldn’t get within eyeshot or earshot of their children,” she said.

Parents this year had no need of binoculars. They were even close enough to get camera close-ups of the smiles and tears on the faces of the graduates.

Rita Gujral of Hollywood, who received a graduate degree, said the ceremony was much better than the one several years ago when she received her undergraduate degree. “I got to hear my name read off, there was room for all my friends to come see me. This feels so much warmer.”

After the ceremony, while the School of Education crowd drifted into the reception area for muffins and coffee, another crowd was forming across campus at Oviatt Library, where 1,063 graduates of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences were to be honored. Parents there reported no travel problems and they too had their choice of seats.

Two years ago, ceremonies started an hour late because CSUN President James W. Cleary was caught with graduates and spectators in the traffic jam on the Hollywood Freeway. On Friday, he merely stepped out of the School of Education’s recessional, headed briskly across campus, and joined the procession filing in to the Behavioral Science ceremony.

“This feels like graduation 22 years ago when I first came here,” he said, as he strode along, academic gown billowing. “This brings us together with more spirit, more heart.”

“One down, seven more to go.”

He was smiling confidently.