184 students to graduate from LTCC Friday

Lake Tahoe Community College’s (LTCC) Annual Commencement Ceremony will be held Friday, June 26 at 6 p.m. on the Community Playfield next to the LTCC Gymnasium. This year’s theme is “Leaving a Legacy,” meant to encourage students to continue to find ways to create and contribute to change in their communities after graduation, and throughout their lives.

This year, 184 students are receiving their AA degrees from LTCC; 43 of them are graduating with honors, and nine are graduating with highest honors. Another 40 students are receiving their departmental certificates. No tickets are required to attend graduation, and community members as well as students and family members are welcome. A reception with light refreshments will be served after the ceremony.

The commencement address will be delivered by Thuy Thi Nguyen, who was recently named interim general counsel for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. She also recently served as the Interim President and CEO of the Community College League of California. Nguyen was a member of the California State Bar’s Council on Access and Fairness, where she helped design and implement the Community Colleges Pathway to Law School initiative, an unprecedented diversity pipeline program involving community colleges, four-year institutions and law schools. She was also a recipient of the 2011 Trailblazer Award from the Vietnamese-American Bar Association of Northern California, and in 2007 was named one of 18 “Best Lawyers Under 40” in the country by the National Asian American Bar Association. She earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and her Juris Doctor degree from UCLA’s School of Law.

During the ceremony, photographer Ian Ruhter will receive the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award. Ruhter was born and raised in South Lake Tahoe, and often struggled in school because of dyslexia. He attended LTCC, where he developed a serious passion for photography. Ruhter became a go-to photographer for several snowboarding magazines. Since then, he’s traveled around the world, developing his own signature way of taking photos by combining new technology with old techniques – some of which haven’t been used since the 1800’s.