About Lavender Graduation

Lavender Graduation is an annual ceremony held on college campuses across the country to honor lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally students and acknowledge their achievements. Lavender Graduation is not a replacement for the campus-wide Commencement, it is an additional opportunity for students to be recognized and celebrate with other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

MVCC hosted its first Lavender Graduation in 2011. Every year since, we have worked with the MVCC Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) to host this ceremony in honor of our LGBTQIA+ graduates, inviting all members of the MVCC community to celebrate their accomplishments.

Class of 2025

MVCC's Lavender Graduation ceremony for the Class of 2025 will be held in May at our Utica Campus. All are welcome to attend! Graduating students who would like to be recognized in the 2025 Lavender Graduation ceremony should email GSA Advisor Erin Severs at esevers@mvcc.edu.

History of Lavender Graduation

The Lavender Graduation Ceremony was created by Dr. Ronni Sanlo, a Jewish lesbian who was denied the opportunity to attend the graduations of her biological children because of her sexual orientation. It was through this experience that she came to understand the pain felt by her students. Encouraged by the Dean of Students at the University of Michigan, Sanlo designed the first Lavender Graduation Ceremony in 1995 at the University of Michigan with three graduates. Today, more than 200 colleges and universities host Lavender Graduation ceremonies nationwide.

The significance of lavender

Lavender is important to LGBTQ history. It is a combination of the pink triangle that gay men were forced to wear in concentration camps and the black triangle designating lesbians as political prisoners in Nazi Germany. The LGBTQ civil rights movement took these symbols of hatred and combined them to make symbols and color of pride and community.