As Washtenaw Community College prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary, we recognize the thousands of alumni who turned opportunity into achievement. For six decades, WCC has opened doors to education, careers, and brighter futures — and these 60 Stories that will be compiled over the year reflect that enduring mission.
When Andrea Kay Luchsinger first stepped into a Washtenaw Community College classroom, the college's current Ann Arbor campus did not yet exist.
The year was 1966 and WCC had taken up temporary residence in a series of Willow Run area buildings for its inaugural year of service to the community. The main classroom building was the old Foster Elementary School and other college spaces were located in a fire station, meat market, bowling alley, Catholic church and a World War II-era Quonset hut.
Known as Andrea Kay Patrick at the time, Luchsinger was born and raised on a farm near Ypsilanti. She attended a one-room school house for her first five years and graduated from Willow Run High School in 1965.
After starting her higher education pursuits at Eastern Michigan University, Luchsinger left the local university and started working in the art department at an Ann Arbor bookstore, which is where she met Tim Luchsinger, the man who would later become her husband of 56 years and counting.
As fate would have it, Tim's father — Leland Luchsinger — had been hired as Executive Assistant for the WCC Board of Trustees. He encouraged Andrea to give college another chance by enrolling at the newly established institution.
"It has been a while since I have thought about those early years," said Luchsinger, who is now 79 and living in Colorado. "I remember everyone being very helpful and caring."
Luchsinger says close connections with faculty helped shape her future. Six decades later, she still has fond memories of a literature instructor, Edith Croake, who strengthened her writing skills, and an art instructor, Janka McClatchy, who inspired a lifelong passion for art with her oil paintings, watercolors and pastel drawings.
After graduating with honors from WCC, Luchsinger returned to Eastern Michigan and earned a bachelor's degree in Early Elementary Education.
Her husband, Tim, also continued his education at EMU, earning a chemistry degree before pursuing a career teaching science at the junior high and high school levels.
Following their marriage in 1970, the couple moved to Colorado, where Andrea spent 30 years teaching kindergarten, elementary, and high school art and reading in a small town on the eastern plains.
Looking back, she credits WCC with helping her build the foundation for the career she had dreamed about since childhood.
"I am an avid supporter of community colleges," she said. "They are such a great place to get started on a great foundation for future careers."
Sixty years after first enrolling, the Luchsingers' connection to WCC continues. Andrea's sister and a great-niece are both WCC graduates, a reminder that the college she joined in its earliest days continues to change lives for generations.
Tags: 60 Stories, 60th Anniversary, Alumni Profile