Oxnard College Graduates to Offer Brief Thank-Yous : Ceremonies: Officials know of no other California school that allows all graduating students to speak at the podium.

They do things a little differently at Oxnard College.

Instead of having a commencement speaker, the two-year community college invites each graduate to spend a minute at the podium thanking anyone he or she wishes.

It’s been done this way since the first class graduated in 1976, and the college’s May 22 ceremony will be no different.

As students troop forward to receive their diploma, they thank parents, children, spouses, former teachers and anyone else who has helped them along the way. It’s all voluntary and some say nothing.

Ron Jackson, acting vice president for student services at the college, remembers an older graduate who wanted to thank the Veterans Administration for paying for his house and his education.

“All those years at war were worth it,” he recalled the man saying.

Some simply thank God for helping them get through college, Jackson said. Others thank family members for putting up with them during finals. Some parents thank children for all the meals they cooked themselves.

College officials know of no other California college that does it that way. This year’s crop of graduates numbers 220, and the procession of thank-yous will begin at 2 p.m. on the Simpson Lawn next to the campus cafeteria.

Ironically, Jackson is the keynote speaker for Moorpark College’s graduation ceremony May 22. He was in the first graduating class at Moorpark 25 years ago.

The college is graduating 934 students, but only one-third are expected to show up for the ceremony, which will begin at 5 p.m. in Griffin Stadium on the campus.

Ventura College’s 62nd graduation ceremony will be at 1:30 p.m. May 21 in the campus gym. This year’s graduating class numbers 850 students. Robert Long, the college’s retiring president, will address the students briefly.

Frances Moore Lappe, author of “Diet for a Small Planet” and “America’s Values,” will speak at Cal Lutheran University’s 29th commencement today.

A baccalaureate service will be held in the gym at 9:30 a.m., and the commencement ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. in Mt. Clef Stadium.

Lappe’s “Diet for a Small Planet,” which deals with world hunger, was published in 1971. Lappe and her husband, Paul DuBois, founded the Institute for the Arts of Democracy in San Rafael.

At Thomas Aquinas College near Santa Paula, the commencement address June 6 will be given by Lynne V. Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

One of Cheney’s reports on education commends the Santa Paula college’s curriculum as one that presumes learning should cause students to ponder perennial issues that have occupied the world’s greatest minds.

A baccalaureate Mass will be said at 9 a.m. on the campus, and the commencement ceremony will follow at 11 a.m.