Coconino Community College was founded in 1991 to serve the county around Flagstaff, Arizona, amid fears that, as a local paper editorialized back then, many people there “cannot afford to or are not allowed to enroll at Northern Arizona University,” the local state school. For 30 years since, the community college has embraced its obligation to those underserved people, many of them low-income minorities, in keeping with its motto: “Start Small, Go Big.” Each spring CCC has held commencement on its small campus in Flagstaff, where it celebrates the modest number of graduates who move on to four-year schools. That is, until this May, when Coconino students received their first-ever invite to hold graduation at the big university down the road.
On the sprawling grounds of Northern Arizona University, a steady roar of applause and cheers greeted the graduates as they marched across the stage of NAU’s 1,350-seat auditorium to “Pomp and Circumstance,” wearing black and gold regalia and broad smiles. In a chorus of testimonials that brought attendees to tears, students recounted the many challenges that could have easily derailed this special day. Sawyer Anna Allison-Begay spoke about how she had to make the daily 100-mile round-trip journey from her Navajo Nation reservation to the community college so she could become the first in her family to earn an associate’s degree.
This fall, she will continue her studies at the University of Arizona. Many of her classmates, however, planned to finish their bachelor’s degrees at their host for the day, NAU—something that the larger school’s new president not only welcomes but openly celebrates. During the ceremony, José Luis Cruz Rivera told the graduating class of mostly low-income, first-generation Hispanic students that each of them had a place at NAU.
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