MiraCosta College is honored to celebrate our spring 2021 graduates with a virtual commencement ceremony to be held on Friday, May 28, 2021, at 5 p.m. While it will not be the same as our traditional ceremony, the college is committed to recognizing the achievements of our students and we will strive to make the virtual event a memorable one that enables graduates to remotely share this monumental achievement with family, friends, and the academic community.
This year's ceremony will include 28 MiraCostans receiving Bachelor’s Degrees in Biomanufacturing. Students receiving a degree or certificate range in age from 73 to 17. Each graduate that RSVPs to the ceremony will be recognized with an official slide that can be personalized with their photo and special message.
"MiraCosta College is excited to celebrate the significant achievements of our students. They have all travelled different paths to reach their destination, but all of them have at least two things in common—an unyielding appreciation for the value of an education and the perseverance to overcome any adversity presented to them. On Friday, May 28 we will virtually honor our students, their families, and communities for their accomplishments and share the joy of this moment through the beauty of technology," comments Dr. Sunita Cooke, superintendent/president of MiraCosta College. "We are so proud of the resilience, dedication, and commitment of the class of 2021! You inspire us all."
Graduate Emanuel Prince will deliver this year’s commencement address. Emanuel started at MiraCosta in our Summer Bridge program and has been a strong advocate for our students and the work we need to do as a college to better support students who have been historically underserved. He has been involved in the Black Student Union, Phi Theta Kappa, Umoja, and was the first-ever Associated Student Government Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Emanuel is receiving his AS degree in Administration of Justice, is on the Dean’s and President’s lists, and will transfer to Cal State University, Dominguez Hills.
For the first time in the commencement history of MiraCosta College, we are excited to have a student poet be part of the ceremony. Nani (Helen LeNani) Highland-Coslow is an EOPS and DSPS student. She was part of Phi Theta Kappa, vice president of Mana Club, has performed at three MiraCosta dance recitals, and was published twice in the MiraCosta literary journal, Tidepools. This year she was a winner of the poetry genre. On the Dean’s and President’s lists, she is receiving an AA degree in English and plans to earn a Ph.D. in English/Literature to become a professor, published author-poet-novelist and lecturer, and Kumu Hula—a master teacher of Hula.
For more information about the virtual commencement ceremony, please visit miracosta.edu/commencement. Watch the promo video here.
Student Speaker: Emanuel Prince
Emanuel Prince came to MiraCosta College for many of the same reasons a lot of graduating high school seniors do. “I’m not a really good test-taker and I was worried about the SAT,” he said. “I also live down the road, so I could stay at home and retain a little bit of stability while going to school. And, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into a four-year college or university right away.”
Turned out to be a great choice. The Class of 2021’s Student Speaker, Prince graduates on the President’s list with a 4.0 grade point average, is the first-ever Associated Student Government Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and is active in the Black Student Union, Umoja, and the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society.
He transfers this fall through the Presidential Scholars Program to California State University, Dominguez Hills, where he will major in sociology—with an emphasis in criminology and justice studies—as he continues a pathway toward law school, preferably UCLA. His long-term goal: effect change in a criminal justice system weighted against people of color by working from within as either an assistant U.S. attorney or as a deputy district attorney.
Prince is as committed as they come. As Vice President of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Prince helped launch a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion scholarship and a Black/African American Student Equity scholarship that are on track to be awarded in spring 2022. He’ll be just as active at Cal State, Dominguez Hills as a Presidential Scholar and student ambassador.
His college involvement began early through MiraCosta College’s Summer Bridge Program. “By far the greatest program I’ve been a part of at MiraCosta,” Prince said. “Absolutely amazing in introducing you to what MiraCosta has to offer, getting ready for the college experience, and connecting you to a cohort of students that provide you with a sense of security and belonging.”
No matter where he goes, Prince said MiraCosta College will always remain a part of his identity. “The faculty and staff at MiraCosta College put the students first in everything they do. I’m so glad I came here.”
Student Poet: Helen LeiNani Highland-Coslow
Helen LeiNani Highland-Coslow has worked 27 jobs in her 46 years. It was when she left her last one during the 2018 government shutdown that she decided to enroll at MiraCosta College.
Honored as Student Poet for the Class of 2021, Highland-Coslow graduates on the President’s List, as a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, and as vice president of the Pacific Islander MANA community. With writings twice published in the MiraCosta College Tidepools magazine, Highland-Coslow graduates with an associate degree in English and is transferring to California State University, San Marcos next fall en route to a master’s and a Ph.D. before settling on a career as a college English professor.
“To come to MiraCosta super ignorant of the whole college experience, it’s been a wonderful ride, eye opening, liberating and insanely great,” said the mother of four who lives on a small family farm in Vista with 10 other family members, including uncles and aunts. “I’ve been exposed to so much here, age differences, gender differences, cultural differences, religious differences, political differences, and it’s all been so wonderfully rich and illuminating.”
Highland-Coslow had dedicated nearly half her life to raising her family—her oldest of four children is 22-year-old daughter Cheyenne and her youngest, Logan, is 11—but decided to enroll at MiraCosta College in 2018 after a federal shutdown resulted in the decimation of her hours at an accountant’s office. “I hated numbers anyway,” quipped Highland-Coslow. “But I love to write.”
Challenges have been many. Highland-Coslow lives with dyslexia and struggles financially. But that won’t stop her from reaching her goal of teaching college English and literature. She would like to specialize in a women’s study course that encompasses and centers around female authors and women throughout history.
“I’m just in love with women authors,” she said. “I think it’s so important that women see the work of other women and get inspired by that work.”
Inspire is what Highland-Coslow aims to achieve with her poem during commencement. “People can do great things when they thrive with a purpose,” she said.
