PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island College conferred baccalaureate degrees on 1,344 students in commencement exercises yesterday that were alternately festive and solemn and drew more than 5,000 proud parents and friends of the graduates to the Murray Center on campus.

College President John Nazarian presided over the ceremonies at the 153-year-old state college. He was joined by state political and educational leaders, including U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, Governor Carcieri, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian and Frank Caprio, chairman of the Board of Governors for Higher Education.

Students marched in to the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” and listened to the usual commencement chestnuts. Yet, there was much evidence that the students had not completely put behind the frivolities of undergraduate life; above the sea of caps and gowns on the floor beach balls floated in the air, as if the graduates were in Fenway Park’s bleachers.

RIC graduations are usually held outdoors, but yesterday morning’s rain forced college officials to shift the ceremony inside to the Murray Center. “We can’t let the weather dampen the enthusiasm here,” said Carcieri, to cheers from the graduates.

Echoing comedian Danny Kaye, Carcieri said, “Life is a big canvas.” The governor urged students to be “aware of the endless possibilities that lie ahead.”

“Don’t worry about career paths; find what excites you,” Carcieri said. “Keep expanding your horizons and, most of all, follow your heart; it’s the inner voice. Time is the most precious gift we have; spend it wisely and make the most of your journey.”

Said Caprio, “You have something special, a degree from RIC.”

Honorary doctorates were given to George Grayboys, the retired president of Citizens Financial Group, and Ron McLarty, a 1969 RIC graduate who has earned fame as a TV and movie actor and novelist.

McLarty’s commencement address sparkled with humor and reminiscence. “I swear I can smell the RIC theater from here,” said McLarty, who began his acting career in campus productions in the 1960s. “The aroma is rehearsal sweat, makeup and hairspray, when I had hair to spray.”

He compared his class with the 2007 grads. “I was reading Rolling Stone a couple of weeks ago and noticed a quote from Keith Richards.

“He essentially said that if you were frozen in the 1960s and thawed out today, you’d think the world had gone mad. I think Keith was right, even if he came up with this observation after falling out of a coconut tree and landing on his head,” McLarty said.

“If some clairvoyant had predicted back then a celebrity-driven civilization, or a $50-million bonus given to an executive as a reward for terminating the employment of 25 percent of his company’s workforce, or a certain New York Yankee whose single-season salary surpasses the entire budget of many American school districts, we’d pull our tie-dyed T-shirts over our shaggy heads,” McLarty said.

“In 1969, when I somehow graduated from RIC, we were most definitely not living at today’s astounding pace, unless you count two guys I knew who did achieve the jump to light chemically,” said McLarty. “Information we received was interpreted for us by The Providence Journal and Walter Cronkite, not Fox, CNN, 8 million bloggers, MySpace, movie stars, spin doctors or politicians.”

There were reminders of RIC’s historic place in Rhode Island, a college that for generations has provided the first step into the middle class for thousands of citizens. Solange Tavarez, who was born in the Dominican Republic and lives in Providence, received her degree yesterday in secondary education.

“It wasn’t easy,” Tavarez said. “I had to work full-time, 40 hours a week and go to school.”

Tavarez said she worked as a supermarket cashier to help finance her RIC education.

About 30 members of the class of 1957 attended the commencement. That class raised $14,000 and donated it to RIC’s scholarship fund.

smackay@projo.com