Dr. Fran Brady, the Director of Careers and the Business Department Chair, will retire at the end of this year. She has taught in the Business and English department at Leyden since 1984. Currently, she is teaching students Digital literacy. In the following interview, she reflects on her career and what comes next.

Past

“I would say my outstanding accomplishment was balancing my academic/school life with my family life.  This can be really tricky when your family is young.  I feel that I gave both my best efforts!  My two children have been very successful, and my students have been very successful.  What more can a person ask for, right?

My favorite memories are when my students come back and tell me what they are doing.  It’s the kind of pride that almost hurts because you never realize how much they cared about what you taught and then you just wish you could have done more.”

Present

“My typical day begins with checking my email at 5 a.m.  I arrive at either East or West by 7:25 am.  I like to check in with my teachers at whatever building I am starting at to see if everyone is OK and that things are running smoothly.  I am always online with email communications.  I like it better than communicating over the phone.  Email is clear and concise — people don’t get mixed messages.  Then my favorite part of the day — teaching!  This year it is Digital Lit.  I love that class!  I am still amazed at how much we need to cover to insure that our students understand Internet safety as it relates to their digital footprint.  I am equally amazed at how students need to learn how to properly use technology to complement learning.  One area that I enjoy most is the career unit.  So many people don’t understand the value of researching and learning about options at an early age.  It is seriously way too late to think about ‘what you want to be’ senior year.  Some people argue that kids won’t be what they think they want to be when they are high school age — and I agree, but  at least they are thinking about it.  Two commodities in life are time and resources.  Our job as educators is to help students use both wisely.  

So after class, I go to my office.  My schedule varies daily consisting of large group or small group meetings, planning for large scale events, networking with Leyden business partners, working on budgets, troubleshooting, and just loving every minute!  I usually leave work between 5 and 5:30 to head home and enjoy cooking and dinner with my husband.  Between 7 and 8 pm, I check my email and do paperwork that I did not finish during the day.”

Future

“ Arizona is my favorite place!  I plan to spend most of winter there.  I am also scheduled to teach a couple of sections of CIS 101 at Arizona State University.  This will be really cool because I never taught a class at a major university.

“Along with teaching college courses, when I retire I want to do volunteer work, do a lot of bird watching and writing.