Dear Seniors and MAT Grads,

You’re less than 50 days away from crossing the stage and beginning your next adventure!

Keep an eye on your inbox and the Commencement 2026 webpage for important updates and information to help you prepare for this milestone occasion.

First things first—Don’t forget to apply to graduate! Graduating seniors must submit their application by Friday, April 17 to participate in this spring’s ceremony. IMPORTANT: You will not be able to claim guest tickets for Commencement or Baccalaureate events until you complete the application process.

If eligible, you will find the application link in your student menu in Banner SSB. The process takes just a few minutes and includes opting in to the ceremony, providing your height for gown sizing, and confirming other key details. Please also record your name in Canvas to ensure it is pronounced correctly during the ceremony.

Sunday, May 17, 8:30 a.m., Ed Robson Arena
Doors open at 7 a.m.

Commencement Ceremony Ticket Information 

Each graduate will have an opportunity to claim an anticipated maximum of seven guest tickets for Commencement, subject to availability. Please watch your inbox in the coming weeks for final ticketing details. After you’ve applied to graduate, eligible students will be able to access these free, general admission guest tickets via your CC Ticketmaster Account at the beginning of May, with specific instructions to come via email. A livestream of the ceremony will also be available online. 

Commencement Speaker: Dee Bradley Baker ’86

The College is pleased to welcome Dee Bradley Baker ’86 back to campus as the 2026 Commencement speaker. A highly accomplished and versatile voice actor, Baker has built a decades-long career across television, film, and video games, known for bringing both iconic characters and entirely original voices to life. Learn more about Baker’s career and accomplishments on the Commencement website.

Announcing This Year’s Honorary Degree Recipient

Each year, CC awards honorary degrees to individuals whose exceptional achievements and contributions inspire our community. Through professional, scholarly, or artistic accomplishments, honorees reflect the values of curiosity, creativity, and leadership. This year, we are proud to recognize Christopher Benoit ’03.

Benoit is an attorney who has been shaped by the communities and mentors he has worked alongside throughout the Americas and has put that training to work both locally and internationally. After graduating from CC, Benoit accompanied genocide witnesses in Guatemala with NISGUA, organized in various worker centers in the U.S., and worked in Mexico with ProDESC defending communities affected by unscrupulous mining practices and forced labor. These experiences drew him to the University of Washington School of Law and to practice on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Based in the borderlands since 2009, Benoit and community partners founded a worker-led organization that changed state wage theft laws. With his law partner, Lynn Coyle, he exposed failures in the El Paso Police Department's use-of-force oversight, resulting in systemic changes.

As border enforcement intensified, Benoit’s practice changed. Benoit’s FOIA litigation uncovered surveillance of human rights lawyers, earning him and his client the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Award in 2022. In 2019, he and Coyle obtained a ruling putting ICE on notice of substandard medical care for hunger strikers. That fight continued alongside the ACLU of New Mexico in 2023 where litigation brought to light the truth behind the death by suicide of a young man at a private facility where inspectors had flagged critical safety failures.

In the last two years, alongside co-counsel, Benoit investigated deaths in expanding detention facilities, secured one of the first federal habeas wins challenging the unlawful detention of a DACA recipient, and forced the first evidentiary hearing on the government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, winning release for a family facing deportation to El Salvador’s CECOT prison. He has also worked to ensure robust legal defense for immigrant rights organizations facing criminalization. 

Benoit exemplifies the application of a liberal arts education in service of building community and power for the most vulnerable.

In addition to Commencement, other related events and festivities include:

Tuesday, May 5, 11 a.m., Shove Memorial Chapel

Honors Convocation is our opportunity to honor outstanding students and faculty. The annual program includes departmental awards, all-college awards, faculty teaching and professorships, and awards from the CC Student Government Association. All members of the campus community are welcome to attend, and a livestream of the ceremony will be available online.

Classes will be dismissed at 10:30 a.m. so that everyone can attend the ceremony.

Saturday, May 16, 3 p.m., Shove Memorial Chapel

Baccalaureate is a centuries-old graduation tradition, providing an opportunity to reflect on this rite of passage, hear from a faculty member, and celebrate our talented students. Students and their invited guests may attend in person (two guests per student).

Seniors who have applied to graduate will receive an email as we get closer to the ceremony with instructions for how to claim tickets to the Baccalaureate ceremony through Ticketmaster. A livestream of the ceremony will also be available online.

Announcing the Baccalaureate Speaker: Lori Driscoll ’94, Professor, Chair of Neuroscience & Psychology

A native of Colorado and a first-generation college student, Driscoll graduated from CC in 1994 with a degree in Psychology. A gap year job at a compounding pharmacy spurred Driscoll’s love of pharmacology, which she combined with her neuroscience background in her studies of Biopsychology at Cornell University. 

After receiving her PhD in 2003, Driscoll returned to CC, where she has taught Psychology and Neuroscience courses for 23 years. Her research focuses on how early life adversity interacts with dietary factors to influence gut health and brain development and function. 

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