The start of the USC takes place at the Colosseum with a drone show, fireworks

While thousands of families flocked in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the start of the main stadium of the University of Southern California on Thursday evening, the scene had the feeling of the usual college event held there: a football match.

“Churros! Water!” The sellers called while they were making their way in front of the seated guests, some of them tightening pompoms. Then, the USC combat song began to play as night fell – and the Olympic torch dominating the Colosseum ignited the cheers.

The show offered a RAH-RAH return on the controversy of last year’s graduation to the USC.

In May 2024, the USC was widely criticized for its treatment from the start. In the middle of the turbulence of campus demonstrations about the War of Israel in Gaza, President Carol Fart canceled the main ceremony on security problems, as well as the speech of Asna Tabassum, which had expressed pro-Palestinian opinions.

While the four -day graduation ceremonies accelerated Thursday evening for the 2025 class, the USC unveiled major changes to a long -standing tradition. Undoubtedly the biggest adjustment: abandon the Parc des Anciens du Place at the start of the longtime campus – and its majestic red brick buildings and mature greenery – for the Caverneux Colosseum.

The USC has also deleted a long -standing practice, announcing in February that there would be no promotion major – and no support speeches. Instead of selecting a graduate elder mainly based on academic notes, the student president, Meghan Anand, was chosen from among the candidates with averages of 3.5 and more who submitted celebration tests on their class.

However, for a university that breaks in its Trojan traditions, the beginning had already been forced to look over time.

Due to the Pandemic COVID-19, the collection of 2021 was relocated to the Colosseum because the size of the place allowed a series of socially distant events. Last year, after the cancellation of the start of the main stadium, the university rushed to organize a “celebration of graduate of the Trojan family” in the Colosseum. He included a drone show, fireworks and free hats from the rapper Travis Scott clothing company. The feelings were mixed.

Before Thursday’s event – the centerpiece of a celebration of graduation of several days which started Wednesday, ends on Saturday and includes more than 20 celebrations on and near the campus – the Times interviewed five graduates graduates about the start.

Some have said that they would have preferred to have the ceremony on the campus, but the prospect of a night celebration which would include another elaborate drone show and a demonstration of massive fireworks still on appeal.

Michael Young, 21, said that he was “excited for this drone show” and that the football matches, the Colosseum would provide an “festive atmosphere”, but he added that the vibrations of the old commemorative park would be missing.

“If we had it there, it would seem just nostalgic,” he said. “Because, you know, we travel this main road to the campus all the time, right?” We sometimes go to this library, right? We want to graduate on the exact steps that we have taken to graduate. ”

Several students also criticized the administration’s decision not to appoint a promotion major – or let that person speak. Nicole Concepcion said that the decision was “just another way for the USC to really filter what they wanted to show everyone”.

“They really try, really to control it this year, which rubbed me in the wrong direction,” she said.

Still others stressed that the pandemic had thwarted the diplomas in person in their high school. They were simply happy to attend all kinds of gathering recognizing their achievements. “Our secondary school graduation ceremonies have been affected by COVID, so I am delighted that we have a big event,” said Jennie Duong, Senior, 22.

In a statement, the USC said the start had been transferred to the adjacent stadium at the campus this year in part because it had received comments from graduates who went to the celebration of last year “and loved the drone show and fireworks”. It was also transferred to the Colosseum because the event “exceeded all the sites of our campus”. The university said it expected 50,000 guests on Thursday evening; Attendance figures were not immediately available.

As for the decision to give up appointing a promotion major, the university noted that other universities have also withdrawn the title of promotion major and that it wanted to “celebrate the achievements of a wider range of graduates who worked incredibly hard throughout their university careers”.

The event at the Colosseum represented something of a do -over for the USC – at least in a way. Director “Wicked”, Jon M. Chu, a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, delivered a speech Thursday evening after the cancellation of his speech planned in 2024 even before the ceremony of the Anciens Parc was canceled in the midst of whirling controversies.

“Your work is not simply inheriting from a world but to reinvent it and define the basics of who we are going ahead,” said CHU to graduates. “Because we live in a time when these old stories of who we are and what we defend are broken down.”

The ceremonial and the tradition

The starting of the main stadium campus at Alumni Park, which started about 75 years ago, were not short of the ceremonial tradition and the old in the decades.

The event would generally start with a procession that saw students broadcast in the Bovard administration building with heraldic flags for the various academic units of the university, followed by deans and other high university leaders in university dresses and colored caps as “pump and circumstance”.

“It was (was) very traditional,” said Annette Ricchizzi, who worked for the USC at events in the 2000s and helped produce start events. He offered “the feeling of what a graduation ceremony should be.

Thursday at the Colosseum, part of this tradition was exposed. There were, for example, students carrying flags. And there was a procession of dignitaries.

But there were elements that are generally not seen at the beginning – although they could have been familiar to any fan of the USC football team, which plays the Colosseum. Like these food sellers.

Ricchizzzi, a former USC student whose two girls are also graduated from the university, has decreed changes that have broken with tradition. “The start is not a football match-and that should not be,” she said.

Students and former students, Ricchizi, among them, said they thought that the decision to hold the event in part from the fact that the place, which is equipped with metal detectors, offers a high level of security. Thursday, guests were not allowed to bring clear bags to the stadium, a policy deployed for other events there.

The main Lawrence Sung, 22, said that he bristles the security doors that the USC has set up along the perimeter of his campus for the start of the school year, but in the case of the start, he includes the needs of close restrictions. “For a big event like this-for graduation-I see the value in there,” he said.

When asked if the security problems played a role in the decision to transmit the start of the Colosseum, the USC returned the Times to a press release indicating that, in part, the event had been organized there because the ability of the place met its needs. The university said that it would not disclose the details of its security plans.

Lloyd Greif, an eminent former student of the USC Marshall School of Business, said that in 2021 – the year of the socially distant start to the Colosseum – two of his children are graduates from the business school, one with a baccalaureate, the other graduate diploma. The Greifs attended the event, and it worked very well.

“I liked the decor,” said Greif, who founded the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial of the Marshall School. “Like Memorial Park has a lot of history and tradition, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.”

Another recent tradition that has not changed: the start of affinity celebrations.

Despite the advice of the Trump Administration Department which suggested celebrations of black, Latin American groups and other affinity groups during the start, illegal forms of segregation and stimulation cancellations elsewhere in the United States, the USC planned to continue events-and all were welcome.

‘We are super excited’

Lavanya Sharma, 21, who was selected to be a standard-bearer, was one of those of the procession that launched the celebration of the Colosseum.

His parents are immigrants from India and Sharma is the first in the family to graduate from an American university. The Colosseum, she said, seems cool for a place at the start.

“It is rare that students have access to the field,” she said. “And I really started to see the Colosseum as part of the USC. I have been there since so much … Football matches organized by the USC.”

Concepcion, who is a American Philippin, can tell. She is also the first person in her family to graduate from an American university. She has planned to attend several ceremonies, including a rally for students of Philippine origin who, according to her, is known as “G-Grad”.

But she said that she had told her parents that she was not sure if she wanted to go at first.

His parents did not.

“They were like” no, we would be delighted to do so. We are super excited to see what it looks like “,” said Concecion.

The staff editor Jaweed Kaleem has contributed to this report.