Edgewood College offered Diaz a full-ride scholarship through its Community Scholars Program, which later became the Emerging Leaders Program. It was the start of the pandemic.

“It definitely eased my financial burden because I was able to just move on campus,” Diaz said. “Because I was a non-traditional student, Edgewood was nice enough to accommodate me with an apartment on campus instead of a dorm. And so I had my own apartment. I had my cat as an emotional support animal, so it was just him and I living in that apartment on campus, which was really nice. After so many years of working 2-3 jobs, it was nice to be able to focus on school. I had been working since I was 14-years-old. I bought my first car, an old Toyota for $700. I paid for my driver’s ed. I’ve always been a worker. I always thought if I didn’t go to school, I was going to work and make money and not stop. It was nice to get the opportunity to be able to focus on school and not have to worry so much about working.”

As a Community Scholar, Diaz did community service work and so it was an opportunity to give back. He volunteered at the Catholic Multicultural Center.

“We had the opportunity to go help with spaghetti dinners and dinners for people in the community,” Diaz said. “That was a lot of fun to be able to go back like that. I also helped around on the Edgewood campus a little bit. There was a year when we helped prepare classrooms before students came in.”

Bayview also had a special place in Diaz’s heart.

“I never lived in Bayview, but I lived down the street from Bayview down Park Street,” Diaz said. “I went to a preschool at Bayview. That’s where a lot of my friends lived. And we remained friends for my k-12 years.”

And so when it came time to do a class project, Diaz chose the Bayview Community Center.

“I did a little project with them for my Men and Masculinity class,” Diaz said. “They have a group to bring awareness to young boys or anyone who wants to join to learn about the implications of toxic masculinity and the expectations that society puts on boys and how it starts in childhood and continues until they are grown men. It was nice to be able to be involved with the Latin kids who were from a similar background as me.”

The community service opportunities were very fulfilling for Diaz.

“I was able to give back,” Diaz said. “And for me personally, the thing I appreciated the most was growing up I this community, being able to give back to the resources that I used and my parents and neighbors used. It was amazing. It was nice to go see the Catholic Multicultural Center. It was nice to go back and see that certain people were still there from when I was younger. They might not recognize me any more, but I recognized them because they had an impact on my life. I remembered Antonio at the front desk. I remember him from growing up. I remember his guitar playing. We’re all older now, but it was nice him around. I felt like I went full-circle.”

During his Edgewood career, Diaz’s academic interests took a turn in a different direction.

“I agreed to be an educator,” Diaz said. “Everything was going well. But after COVID-19, I kind of shied away from that, the education part of it. I knew that I still wanted to teach, even if it wasn’t like in the traditional way of getting a teaching license and teaching school. I thought about being a part of a community center and teaching art classes. I went ahead with the art major and minored in entrepreneurship and psychology.”

As he prepared to graduate from Edgewood College in May, Diaz’s interests took another turn.

“I found out about this accelerated master’s of education program that is between Edgewood and UW-Madison,” Diaz said. “It’s like an asynchronous program where I would be out of school in the fall teaching doing my student teaching and I would end up taking my classes online for a year. I should then be able to get my master’s degree. And I wanted to specifically get it in special education, since that is what got me to go back to college, being a special ed assistant. It was another one of those full-circle moments. UW-Madison was partnering with all the districts in Wisconsin. And I have some connections from working at Cherokee Middle School. So for the last couple of days, I’ve been looking at open positions in the district. About 4-5 years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined having a bachelor’s degree or even thinking about a master’s degree. Things can change very quickly.”

In another full-circle moment for Diaz, he has finally found come to the end of the long road he has been on to find his purpose in life

“I would love to be a special ed teacher,” Diaz said. “There is this huge need. My brother is 10-years-old. And he is going to a be fifth grader next year at Randall. I attended his IEP meeting this year. And in the meeting, I found out that his fourth grade case manager, cross-categorical special ed teacher position has been vacant all year long. And they have had subs coming in and out. From my experience working as a special ed assistant and my psychology classes and personal experiences, special ed requires a lot of consistency. If you have a sub coming in and out, they aren’t having the same impact going from sub to sub.”

Most importantly, Diaz would be able to bring a special empathy to the students because of their shared experiences.

“I feel from my experiences, being a person of color, but also being a Latino male from the south side of Madison, I feel like I will be able to reach children in a different way than older, white women could,” Diaz said. “I saw at Cherokee that there are a lot of Latino kids who really don’t want to be taught. They wouldn’t want to talk with the teachers, but then I came in as a student assistant and they would listen to and respect me. I feel a lot of that has to do with just the fact of me being Latino. As a kid, I did not like being told what to do. I felt they didn’t validate my feelings because they didn’t understand them. I didn’t know that. I felt they were being mean. They just didn’t understand the experiences that I was going through because we lived different lives. I want to be able to make that connection with kids and understand that they can relate to me because I probably had a childhood experience similar to theirs. I think that is really important to make kids feel they are understood. You’re not always going to fully understand what they are going through, but I will at least validate what they are going through.”

Diaz gives Edgewood College a lot of credit in allowing him to complete the journey he has been on.

“I was blessed enough to have a huge support system at Edgewood,” Diaz said. “I didn’t think that was a possibility. What I had heard about Edgewood and people whom I knew had gone to Edgewood, no one ever really talked about the support at Edgewood. But it’s a small school. You get to meet a lot of professors and advisors and get to know people in the community. That’s what helped me the most. I had more than six people whom I could go to if I had questions. And I wasn’t shy about asking questions either. I got a lot out of having conversations with my psych professor. I’m a big believer that you get what you put into it. It’s important to speak up and not worry about what others think. I was there to get my education and for no other reason.”

Edgewood invested in Brad Diaz and now he is set to invest himself in the community. And there is no finer purpose in life than that.