On July 26, FINE Mortuary College held its 27th commencement ceremony, graduating its first all-female class in the school’s 28-year history. Nineteen female graduates received an associate of applied sciences degree in funeral service, and 15 of them were in attendance for the ceremony, which was celebrated by more than 100 guests.

FINE welcomed commencement speaker Briana Garcia, co-author of Creating Natural Form: Restorative Art Theory & Application and the first female author to be credited on the cover of a mortuary science textbook in more than 100 years. A local TV, film and commercial makeup artist with more than 12 years of experience, Garcia has worked on such shows as The Late Late Show With James Corden, CBS Mornings and, currently, The Bold and The Beautiful on CBS.

“Thankfully, the funeral service industry has been rapidly progressing with more and more women entering the field,” Garcia told the graduates. “A fact not many people are aware of is that the makeup industry was male dominated up until the last few decades… beginning with Max Factor, at the start of Hollywood’s Golden Era,” she said, adding, “Progress and inclusion benefits everyone and allows for collaboration of ideas, styles and techniques, not just in the makeup industry but in the funeral service industry as well.”

As of 2022, as many as 72% of recent funeral service education graduates in the United States were female, according to American Board of Funeral Service Education statistics. FINE’s current student body is approximately 85% female. fmc.edu