The Graduates : 750 Chapman University students mark the conclusion of years of study at Sunday’s commencement, a ceremony light in mood, weighted in tradition.

Wearing beach shorts under black robes and everything from sandals to cowboy boots, Chapman University’s Class of 1994 took its last bow Sunday during commencement exercises that drew more than 4,500 people on a sweltering spring day.

“What does today mean? My whole life has changed,” said Kevin Cook, 25, a business communications major who is seeking a career in marketing or advertising.

The laid-back class of 750 graduates informally chatted, blew soap bubbles and sprinkled confetti on each other during the exercise. They heard welcoming remarks by Chapman President James L. Doti and a commencement speech by Jay H. Boylan, chair of the university faculty.

Boylan offered a light, yet thoughtful and witty address intertwining ideas borrowed from Hollywood movies and excerpted from books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He entitled the speech, “Advice I Got From Kurt Vonnegut Jr. That You Might Want to Remember.”

“My first bit of advice,” Boylan said, “is to advise you to turn off your television sets and start listening to NPR (National Public Radio).”

After talking about Vonnegut, Boylan borrowed from Hollywood when he counseled graduates, “Carpe diem” (Latin for “seize the day”), a phrase actor Robin Williams familiarized to a generation in the 1989 movie, “Dead Poets Society.”

“This is a maxim worth remembering,” Boylan said. “But once you seize the day, and seize the future, what will you do with it?”

When Boylan roamed, then refocused on a phrase that begged more description, the audience wanted none of it.

“Let me try to explain that,” Boylan began before stopping short after the audience roared with laughter when someone shouted, “No!”

“Seize the day,” Boylan said, “. . . seize the future. Use your consciousness. Or, borrowing from Jefferson Starship, ‘Feed Your Head.’ ”

Another lighter moment occurred when speaker Nader Baroukh, a legal studies and psychology graduate, propped a fishbowl on top of the podium.

“I remember that President Doti once referred to Chapman University as a pond and the students as goldfish,” said Baroukh, recipient of the Cheverton award, Chapman University’s highest honor. “So I brought my goldfish here with me.”

When the family and friends of Gina Garrovillas, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher in Moreno Valley, heard her name among the list of those graduates receiving master’s degrees, they whooped with delight. Later, they hugged and took pictures of each other, posing with Garrovillas as she shared her special moment with her loved ones.

“My whole family is here; they live in San Diego,” Garrovillas said, lining up with five cousins for a family photograph.

Her father, Mateo Garrovillas, said he was “on cloud nine.”

“We had to use our savings bringing up our kids and making sure they go to college,” her father said. “Yes, and we had to pinch pennies too, because I have four children and three have already finished college. Our fourth is in junior college.

“We made education our first priority before everything else, even cars and clothes,” he added proudly.

For Kevin Hughes, 33, from north New Jersey, graduating from college fulfilled a high school promise he made to himself long ago.

“I’ve been on active duty in the United States Navy for 13 years,” said Hughes, a business administration major and hospital corpsman stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. “I couldn’t afford to go to college from high school. It was a goal for me while I was in high school to someday finish college.”

Hughes said the degree will help him break from a bleak cycle of poverty that affects many African Americans like himself.

“I come from a very poor family,” Hughes said. “But for a black kid growing up in an inner city, finishing college is very important to me. I’m the only one in a family of eight brothers and sisters to get a degree. To blacks, it’s a full circle of welfare and poverty.

“My object is to break that circle, see?” Hughes said. “To change something that was bad to something positive. How do I feel? This graduation is the best thing in my damn life, I can tell you that!”