More than 6,000 CSU graduates join together for campuswide celebration
University President Amy Parsons spoke about the dreams of families who support their children’s educational goals, with tears in her eyes as she acknowledged that her oldest daughter “was somewhere in this field” as a second-generation Colorado State University graduate.
Fort Collins native and 2019 CSU graduate Hunter Powell shared his own story of relentless pursuit of a seemingly impossible dream that finally came true when he competed in the 2026 Winter Olympics as a member of the U.S. bobsled team.
“As a people, we have a responsibility to pursue our dreams,” said Powell, the keynote speaker. “You owe it not only to yourself, but to the people around you, the people in this stadium and the people you haven’t met yet to pursue your dreams.”
Colorado State University graduates toss their mortars into the air May 16, 2026, at the end of a campus-wide commencement ceremony at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado.
And for more than 6,000 graduates who participated in the campus commencement ceremony May 16 at Canvas Stadium, those dreams include the CSU degrees for which they were being honored.
“It’s more than a graduation ceremony,” Parsons said. “This is the realization of thousands of dreams – the dreams of all of you students who worked tirelessly to reach this moment, the dreams of parents and grandparents who sacrificed, encouraged, worried in the beginning and believed in you. »
Many of those parents and grandparents were among the nearly 24,000 people in the stands, cheering on new CSU graduates during a nearly two-hour ceremony on a warm, sunny day. Attendance and spectator numbers were about double what they were in 2025, when CSU held its first campus-wide commencement since 1998.
“Honestly, it was amazing,” Aguma Otuonye said as he and the other graduates later walked out to meet their families in the stands. “The energy was crazy. I loved being with her.”
Otuonye, who holds a bachelor’s degree in business management, was among thousands of students who flipped their mortarboard’s tassel from right to left, as instructed, before tossing them into the air as students from the university’s ROTC program fired a round from the stadium cannon.
Lise Youngblade, the university’s new dean and executive vice president, served as moderator, while student government president Joseph Godshall, Parsons, former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. — all proud CSU alumni, they each noted — gave short speeches.
The campus-wide event is being held in addition to recognition ceremonies held by the university’s various colleges, during which students walked across a stage and received diploma covers while their names were read aloud. These ceremonies were scheduled for May 15 and the afternoon and evening of May 16 to give graduates and their families the opportunity to participate in both.
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Students graduating in the fall 2025, spring 2026 and summer 2026 terms — a total of more than 8,000 students — were eligible to participate in the campus-wide 2026 commencement, CSU spokeswoman Jennifer Dimas said.
“I feel like it was really powerful to be able to come together as an entire university,” said Aliya Fiske, who graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in gender studies and interdisciplinary liberal arts. “I’ve spent a lot of time with my specific graduates and with my specific college. But at the end of the day, we’re all Rams, and it’s really nice to connect with people from across the university, across all majors, and just share the experience together.”
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, select sports and other topics of interest to the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell, threads.net/KellyLyell And facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: More than 6,000 CSU graduates gather to celebrate
