CIIS’ 57th Commencement Ceremony

CIIS held its 57th annual commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17, 2025 at A.C.T.’s Toni Rembe Theater — a historic venue in the heart of Union Square in downtown San Francisco. In addition to the awarding of doctoral, master’s, and bachelor’s degrees to the Class of 2025, this year’s event included several musical performances and a variety of speeches from members of CIIS’ Beloved Community — University leaders, faculty, and graduating students.

This year marks a bittersweet milestone as we celebrate the retirements of two esteemed professors, Annette Williams, Ph.D., from the Department of Women’s Spirituality, and Shoshana Simons, Ph.D., from the M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. These accomplished faculty members, both former chairs of their respective programs, shared their words and wisdom with the graduating class during the event, and both were awarded the status of faculty emerita in recognition of their years of excellent leadership and teaching. Drawing on her years leading Women’s Spirituality, Professor Williams offered the invocation for the ceremony, commending the graduates for their perseverance and commitment during challenging times. “You adapted. You reimagined. You persevered,” she said. “This is what resilience looks like — not perfection, not ease — but showing up with courage and compassion when the path ahead is unsure or unsteady. In doing so, you not only uplifted yourselves, you uplifted one another.”

Professor Simons lent her skills as a performer and decades of experience in the expressive arts to a moving and engaging commencement address. Beginning by encouraging the crowd to breathe and ground in the present moment, Simons reflected on CIIS as a place where “education is a full-bodied, soul-rooted endeavor, now weaving in wisdom teachings from North, South, East and West…Where activism is braided with spirituality. Where the mind, the heart, the body, and the earth are not separate domains but one living ecosystem.” She described the community and scholarship that grows out of such a place as an improbable miracle — an “intricate, unplannable web of meetings, choices, accidents, and acts of courage,” — and encouraged students to carry that everyday curiosity, persistence, and interdependence into their futures.

The ceremony also included remarks from University President S. Brock Blomberg, Provost Kathy Littles, and Executive Dean of Institutional Research, Innovation, and Strategy Kris Brandenburger. In addition to their roles as faculty members, professors Willow Pearson Trimbach, Psy.D., core faculty in Clinical Psychology, and Sangeeta Swamy, Ph.D., co-chair of the M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Integral Counseling Psychology, are also accomplished musicians. Pearson Trimbach shared a haunting song entitled “Original Face” accompanied by a singing bowl; later in the ceremony, Swamy performed an original composition, “Wingspan,” on violin.
 

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The ceremony would not be complete without the voices of the students themselves, and this year, the Class of 2025 was well represented with two student speakers and a student-led performance to conclude the festivities. Student speaker Dominic Bucci, a graduate of the B.S. in Psychology program and student in the East-West Psychology Joint MFA program, represented our bachelor’s-degree-completion graduates. Bucci spoke compellingly of what it means to return to higher education, and of the connection and support he experienced at the University: “CIIS has shown us that education is not a solitary endeavor; it is communal, it is relational, and it is interwoven with the well-being of those who journey beside us", he said. “Here, we have learned that healing, growth, and wisdom arise not in isolation, but in connection — with each other, with our higher selves, and with the world around us.”

CIIS has shown us that education is not a solitary endeavor; it is communal, it is relational, and it is interwoven with the well-being of those who journey beside us.
Dominic Bucci, Graduate of the B.S. in Psychology program and student in the East-West Psychology Joint MFA program

Marissa Huang, a graduate of the M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Integral Counseling Psychology, and an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist at CIIS’ Pierce Street Integral Counseling Center, shared her perspective on the graduate-student experience at CIIS, offering anecdotes of funny moments and hardships, and illustrating the importance of community at all levels of the process, both in and out of the classroom, online and in person. Earning her M.A. taught her “to hold multiplicity with reverence,” she said, and “recognize that healing, knowledge, and transformation happens in relationship — with each other, with the world, and within ourselves.”

To end the event, Rachel Lastimosa, a community organizer, interdisciplinary artist, and graduate of Expressive Arts Therapy, led graduates and their guests in a call-and-response people’s choir. Lastimosa rooted the performance in the Filipino concept of kapwa, which, she said, is often “translated to interconnectedness,” but that “what gets lost in translation is that there’s no separation between you and me.” Following Lastimosa’s lead, the gathered students, guests, faculty, and staff intoned as one “with work as play, and day is dream, we’ll be the keepers of our story. We will not let them take our joy.” Lastimosa’s offering sent off the Class of 2025 in a uniquely CIIS style, buoyed by the voices of Beloved Community, of which their own voices play such an integral part.
 

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Following the ceremony, graduates and their guests were invited to stay at the theater for a champagne toast celebration of the Class of 2025.
 

Editor’s note: Our own Rhonda Reliford of the Office of Strategic Communications and Relations was among this year’s graduates, earning her M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. Congratulations to Rhonda and the class of 2025!