Newswise — This year’s commencement speaker at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida, will be Patricia Latham, Immediate Past President of the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) and a founding member of Beacon College. Commencement ceremonies will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 3rd at Lake Receptions event facility in nearby Mount Dora, Florida.

“We are delighted that Pat Latham will be delivering the keynote address to this year’s graduates and to our college community,” said Dr. George J. Hagerty, President of Beacon College. “Her insights, both on Beacon College’s history and special place in higher education, and on learning disabilities, legal issues and best practices from her work and leadership with the Learning Disabilities Association of America, offer an informed perspective that is both timeless and timely.”

Patricia Latham has served for decades as an attorney, arbitrator, mediator and champion of the learning-disabled (LD) community in America. She is also co-author, with her husband Peter Latham, of eight books on learning disability legal topics, including: special education law, learning disabilities/ADHD and the law in higher education and employment, and learning disabilities and the law. She has over 40 years in law practice including three years at Office of General Counsel at the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She continues to serve on the LDA Board and Executive Committee, and holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

As one of the founding members of Beacon College 25 years ago, Latham and her colleagues successfully established the first college in the United States to offer four-year bachelor degree programs exclusively to students with learning disabilities. The college’s founding trustees, a group of parents concerned about higher education opportunities for students with learning disabilities, established Beacon in 1989 as America’s first four-year college to embrace students with learning disabilities by providing educational opportunities that acknowledge individual learning differences.

Exclusively serving students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and other learning differences, Beacon College’s distinctive mission focuses on the academic and career success of students who learn differently. Beacon College currently enjoys a 76 percent four-year graduation rate among its students, and 83 percent of Beacon’s graduates are currently employed or pursuing graduate study.

More information on the college’s unique mission: http://www.beaconcollege.edu/beacon-college-about-us/ and on commencement http://www.beaconcollege.edu/beacon-blog/commencement/

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