AACC will hold its annual graduation ceremony on May 25 at the Live! Hotel & Casino’s event center in Hanover.

The college will split graduation into two ceremonies. Students graduating from the schools of Health Sciences; Science, Technology and Education; Continuing Education and Workforce Development will meet for a 2 p.m. ceremony. AACC will hold the second ceremony at 6 p.m. for students from the Schools of Liberal Arts and Business and Law. 

According to AACC President Dawn Lindsay, the college expects approximately 600 students to walk the stage at graduation.

“When I see students going down the aisle to their seats and getting ready for the event, there’s so much excitement and so much enthusiasm,” Lindsay said. “It’s not uncommon to kind of bring a tear to my eye because I realized how special today is for our students, and how much there is to celebrate.”

She added the college will host two ceremonies so students can have more guests. 

“We had a discussion that we could have actually had one ceremony if we limited our students to only two guests,” Lindsay said. “But we don’t want to limit our students to only two guests. We want them to be able to have five guests. And in order to do that, to accommodate at Live!, we needed to do two different ceremonies.”

Lindsay said being chosen as grand marshal or faculty marshal for the ceremony is a significant award. 

She added the two faculty members who win the Teaching Excellence award, which is voted for by students, will be chosen to deliver the commencement speeches at the two ceremonies. 

According to Dean of Enrollment Services John Grabowski, the college will not require participants to wear masks for the event.

Lindsay said the graduation on May 25 will fall on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot–which begins its celebrations at sunset. 

Lindsay encouraged students who celebrate Shavuot to sign up for the 2 p.m. commencement, even if they are a part of the schools of Liberal Arts or Business and Law.

“So if anybody’s in that situation, and they, you know, still want to be able to celebrate with their family come sunset,” Lindsay said. “All they need to do is let us know that the family and themselves … need to come at 2 o’clock for the ceremony so that we can be sure that they’ll be home by evening.”