Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) celebrated Bede Leyendecker and her years of service to the university by awarding her the Service Award for 15 years of dedication. The Bridge had an opportunity to interview the accomplished instructor; here she provides some insight on the beginnings of her teaching career.
After graduating with a degree in Dance Education from the University of Houston. Leyendecker taught at Laredo Community College (LCC [formerly known as Laredo Junior College]) for 15 years, before she applied as a full time professor at TAMIU in 1998. The decision to move from LCC to TAMIU was not an easy one as she stated: “…It was something that was very tearing because I loved my students at LCC and I was very comfortable there, but I felt that coming to TAMIU was an opportunity to keep the students longer 4 years not just 2, and to really work at trying to get a degree in place for the many talented kids in our community because i think thats very important.” She feels that coming here was a chance to give talented students an opportunity to study the arts closer to home: “I think that a lot of our students, their parents are not comfortable with sending them to Denton, or to Dallas or, you know, San Marcos has a degree also, but they’re not comfortable sending their kids away.”
With her experience at LCC and continuing seniority at TAMIU, Leyendecker was later awarded the position of Department Chair for the School of the Fine and Performing Arts here at TAMIU. When asked how TAMIU treated her, she replied: “..This is probably my first home, I think I spend more time here at school than I do in my own house, and I love what i do, so its not a day of work for me, its a day of pushing along and making sure that the dreams that I hope to fulfill before I retire are fulfilled.”
With the time and effort she put into the school, and in association her students, she accepted the Service Award: “I completed 15 years here at TAMIU, so I’ve been in the business for 30 years and hopefully the good lord will keep me pushing along a couple more.” When asked how one would qualify for the award she replied: “by working very hard, and I always feel like my primary obligation is to my students when I teach, and to my faculty members when I’m doing my department chair duties… I have been spreading this message maybe a little more profoundly in the last few years that if you know someone in the arts; because its never an 8am-5pm, Monday thru Friday job, its nights its weekends its holidays and its a lot of work. But the payoff when you see your students go from one level to a very different level and learn a lot about themselves through the arts; there is nothing that can compensate any better than the feeling of seeing them succeed.”
(Manuel Morales III can be reached via email: mememorales@dusty.tamiu.edu)