Nearly 400 students and their families gathered Saturday for the Westmont College commencement. 
Commencement speaker Carol Houston, a Westmont trustee and a senior pastor in Watts, asks graduates to build on the foundations of their lives with their faith. 
Westmont College’s Class of 2017 studied 27 different majors. 
Students file into Russell Carr Field during Westmont College’s commencement Saturday morning. 
Businessman and humanitarian Patrick Enthoven receives the Westmont Medal from college president Gayle Beebe Saturday. 
Businessman and humanitarian Patrick Enthoven speaks to the Class of 17 after receiving the Westmont Medal from college president Gayle Beebe Saturday. 
Nearly 400 Westmont College graduates queue up in the drizzle before commencement ceremony Saturday.
Outdoor graduations typically aren’t a problem for Westmont College, according to English professor Paul Delaney.
A couple times, field-muddying storms had pushed the ceremony over to Santa Barbara City College, and one time, rain forced commencement into the Westmont gym.
But on Saturday, Delaney said, “this is the first time outside making memories in the mist.”
Nearly 400 students and their families braved a persistent drizzle to send off the Christian liberal arts college's Class of 2017.
Westmont’s latest crop of graduates had studied 27 majors.
Despite the damp cheer, however, the ceremony got off to a somber start.
A moment of silence was held for Davies Kabogoza, a 30-year-old Westmont and SBCC alumnus who died last week while paddle-boarding in the Santa Barbara Harbor, as well as for the Class of 2017’s Courtney Crosby and another alumnus who were hospitalized after a helicopter crash in Hope Ranch Friday.
Westmont officials said Crosby is expected to fully recover from Saturday’s surgery.
Through tough times or prosperous times, commencement speaker Carol Houston asked graduating students to use their faith to build on the foundations of their lives: their family, friends, faculty and faith communities.
It’s a lesson the Westmont trustee and Watts pastor said she learned during her own trying times as a University of Denver student.
“The challenge this morning that I have for you is to build on that foundation,” she said. “Identify what it is — even then, don’t get comfortable with how you feel somewhat stable now.
“You must build on it, because as you move forward in life, calamities will come, struggles will come, yet the spirit of God is here with you.”
South African businessman and humanitarian Patrick Enthoven, who received the Westmont Medal for his work providing opportunity for underprivileged children in Africa, recalled the apartheid-era message Robert F. Kennedy had for him and his fellow University of Cape Town students in the then-senator’s Day of Affirmation Address.
Enthoven recalled Kennedy asserting that, the notion “if you disturb the status quo in any way, you disturb your privilege,” is “totally fallacious.”
“Unless we disturb the status quo, unless you improve the lives of the underprivileged, your privilege is at risk,” Enthoven told the mortarboard-capped crowd.
“I must tell you that exactly the same thing applies today,” he said. “Your privilege of having graduated here is at risk unless we all get together and help uplift those who are underprivileged.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.