Guest speaker: NCC grad is now a legislator

Nassau Community College is proud to welcome back NCC alum Joshua Lafazan, whose presentation titled Joshua Lafazan, Nassau County’s Youngest-Ever Legislator:  From Nassau Community College, to Cornell, to Harvard will take place on Tuesday, February 13, at 11:30 a.m. in the Multipurpose Room of the College Center Building.

“On behalf of the Nassau Community College community, it is my pleasure to welcome NCC graduate and County Legislator Josh Lafazan, who will speak to our students about his journey from NCC to Cornell to Harvard to the County Legislature.   He is a role model for our students, and an example of yet another highly successful NCC graduate,” said Nassau Community College President, Dr. W. Hubert Keen.

Legislator Lafazan is excited at the prospect of speaking to NCC students.  “I look forward to heading back to my alma mater — a place which made such a substantial impact on my life — to hopefully inspire more youth across the Island to seek entry into the political arena,” he said.

At 23 years of age, the Hon. Joshua Lafazan became Nassau County’s youngest-ever legislator upon election to the Nassau County Legislature in November of 2017.  He is currently serving his first term, representing Nassau’s 18th Legislative District.  Lafazan graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a master’s degree in Education Policy and Management in May 2017.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.  Prior to attending those colleges, Lafazan graduated suma cum laude from Nassau Community College, in 2013.

Lafazan made headlines in 2012, when at the age of 18 he was elected to the Syosset School Board of Education, becoming one of the youngest elected officials in the history of New York State.  He was elected with 82 percent of the vote one month before he graduated from Syosset High School.  But his dedication to community service began even before that.  In 2011, Lafazan was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Safe Ride Syosset, a community outreach program dedicated to ensuring that no Syosset teenager got behind of the wheel of a car while intoxicated.  Josh and his volunteers safely drove home over 350 students in 2012, and there was not a single drinking and driving accident in Syosset on the nights Safe Ride was operating.

Lafazan has made fighting the heroin and opioid epidemic his top legislative priority.  Since 2013, he has served on both the Board of Directors of the Long Island Council On Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the Nassau County Heroin Prevention Task Force.

For more information about Legislator Lafazan’s presentation at NCC, which is free and open to the public, call 516.572.7148.

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