Two’s Company, Three’s a Graduation at Cal State University

It may be the smallest graduating class in Cal State history.

The Class of 2003 at Cal State University Channel Islands is composed of Erich Pearson, Sigifredo Cruz and Mark Lara. A future doctor, math teacher and youth counselor. Three men who took different paths to claim their diplomas but who will be joined in history as the first graduates of the Camarillo campus.

“I’ll be able to tell everybody that I was in the top three of my class,” joked Pearson, who at 23 is the youngest of the trio and took the most direct route to graduation.

The Simi Valley resident came to Channel Islands to be closer to home after three years at Humboldt State and a year of studying in Spain.

Cruz, 28, of Oxnard drove a tank for the Army and a tanker for an oil company before getting serious about his studies. And Lara, a 30-year-old Santa Barbara resident, dipped in and out of college and worked several jobs before snagging his degree.

With more than 700 other students, they made up the inaugural class when the university opened last fall.

But they were the only ones to earn the right to don caps and gowns this year, completing their coursework plus 30 units at the campus, as required by the CSU system.

They won’t walk the graduation line alone, however.

More than 800 students from the Ventura County campus of Cal State Northridge are eligible to pick up diplomas Friday as Channel Islands hosts its inaugural commencement. Another 16 Channel Islands students who earned teaching credentials also could join the procession.

Cal State officials say they had to look back to the mid-1800s, when the university system was founded, to find an undergraduate class nearly as small.

But Channel Islands President Richard Rush said what the Class of 2003 lacks in numbers, it makes up for in significance as the university continues a 30-year campaign to deliver higher learning to a region where it had been lacking for too long.

“We are beginning with a trickle, but the flood is coming,” said Rush, who plans to personally sign each of the diplomas as soon as they are printed. “This is a historic moment for the university and for the region. It is the tangible fulfillment of the dream.”

Sigifredo Cruz never dreamed of a college education while he was growing up.

The son of immigrant farm workers, he was born in Ventura but raised in Mexico until his freshman year in high school. He was barely able to speak English when he arrived in Oxnard at age 14, and his prospects seemed limited.

But come next week, the math major will graduate from Cal State Channel Islands with honors, continuing a series of firsts for the former tank operator and truck driver.

Cruz was the first in his family to finish high school and he will be the first to graduate from college. He attended the university’s first honors convocation earlier this month. Once he graduates, he will be among the first at the campus to pursue a single-subject teaching credential.

“I’ve told most of my friends, ‘I’m going to be in the record books,’ ” said Cruz, a straight-A student last semester. “I may not be there for being the smartest, but I’ll be there for being the first.”

Cruz joined the Army straight out of high school and later drove a truck full time while attending community college at night in Oxnard and Ventura. He transferred to Cal State Northridge in 2001 and came to Channel Islands partly because it was closer to home and partly because he wanted to make history as one of its first students.

Cruz plans to return to the Oxnard district where he graduated from high school, bringing with him an expertise in mathematics and a message that if he can make it, others can too.

There’s a big party in the works for Mark Lara, a celebration as much for his liberal studies degree as for his dogged pursuit of higher education.

For the better part of a decade, the Santa Barbara native attended Santa Barbara City College, Cal State Northridge and Pierce College in Los Angeles.

He also worked for a day-care center in South Pasadena and a trucking company in Fresno before deciding once and for all to complete his degree at Channel Islands.

“It took me awhile,” said Lara, who, like Cruz, is the first in his immediate family to earn a four-year degree. “But I knew I needed to finish school if I was going to get somewhere.”

Lara said it was an easy decision to attend the Camarillo campus when it opened last fall. But he didn’t expect the bond he would form with his fellow students in just one year at the fledgling campus. Nor did he give much thought to making history as one of the university’s first graduates.

“That’s pretty crazy -- when you think of a university, you don’t think that only three people are going to be graduating from it,” said Lara, who plans to pursue a career working with youth. “But you have to have some pride knowing you’re one of the first ones.”

It’s a wonder Erich Pearson found the time to fit it all in.

In addition to completing 30 units like his fellow graduates, the liberal studies major launched the Pre-Professional Club for pre-dental, pre-medical and pre-veterinarian students at Cal State Channel Islands.

It was those opportunities, the possibility of shaping the future of the campus, that helped bring Pearson to Channel Islands in the first place.

“Having the opportunity to be part of the formation of a new school was a real draw,” said Pearson, who plans to apply to medical school this summer and hopes to be enrolled by next fall.

“I just saw all of the potential that was there,” he said, “and it really intrigued me.”

There has long been intrigue and interest in the idea of a public, four-year university in Ventura County.

Now Cal State Channel Islands is making history as it hosts its inaugural commencement, and Pearson is glad to be along for the ride.

“I think it’s quite an honor to graduate with the first class,” he said. “I think we’ll definitely hold our place in history.”