Juggling family, teaching and a doctorate
Posted by The Skyliner on March 3rd, 2010Taylor Edwards
Staff Writer
Running into people who have almost three full-time jobs is rare. Most people are content with one. However, there are those few that never settle for the minimum but tackle many challenges at once.
One of those people is a magnificent cello player, Brenda Leonard. She is currently working at three different colleges, finishing up her doctorate and trying to save time for her husband, Alan, and her son, Tim.
Leonard and her family live in Boiling Springs, S.C., where her husband is a priest at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. Leonard teaches a high school Sunday school at the church as well.
Teaching at the church and taking care of the family is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Leonard is also an adjunct cello faculty member at North Greenville University, Clemson University and Anderson University. Leonard got her jobs at Clemson and Anderson in the fall of 2008 and her job at North Greenville in January of 2009. She has seven private cello students at North Greenville, five at Clemson and two at Anderson. Besides private lessons, Leonard also leads string ensembles and quartets and teaches music theory and fundamentals of music at North Greenville.
Besides the college jobs, she also occasionally plays for the Greenville Symphony, Spartanburg Philharmonic, Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium (GAMAC) and the Asheville Symphony.
But the story does not end there. On top of family, teaching and orchestra, Leonard is also in the process of completing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of South Carolina. She began this long and challenging process in the fall of 2004, when her husband (formerly a chaplain) was in Iraq. During the first year and a half of her doctoral work, she was separated from her husband due to his military duties. The course work, all five solo recitals, oral exams and the 30 class credits she had to take are finished. All that Leonard has left to complete her doctorate is to write a 100 page half dissertation on the cello composer Max Rager.
She has no definite plans for when she finishes her doctorate yet. Although one of the main reasons she decided to get her doctorate in the first place is so that she can work at a college level, she said that she is in no rush to apply for a permanent job at a university. She has her family to think about for one thing, and she wants to keep her job options open for the time being. However, there is a large possibility that she will try to stay at North Greenville University, not only because its music program is expanding, but also because she loves the university.
Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 6