Naperville Woman Gets Master's Degree at 54, Produces Play

Brenda Castile-Munoz’s life story reads as dramatically as the plays she is finally able to write. Last month, she held 3,000 people spellbound when she delivered the commencement speech at National Louis University (NLU), just before receiving her Master of Science in Written Communication diploma.

On Aug. 6, 54-year-old Naperville resident Castile-Munoz, whose dreams of a college education were shattered when she was 19, will see her first play produced at NLU’s Summer Fest. Titled “Hope Deferred,” it examines how an interracial teenage couple in 1979 deal with their conflicting attitudes when they learn the girl is pregnant. Summer Fest will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. on NLU’s Chicago campus at 122 S. Michigan Ave, with “Hope Deferred” scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.

While “Hope Deferred” is the title of her play, it also describes Castile-Munoz’s own journey. When she couldn’t afford college back in 1981, she went to secretarial school—considered a viable, and less costly, option for women at that time. After getting a secretarial job at Metra, the commuter rail service, she relied on her grit to transfer to a job as trainman, and later as locomotive engineer. While those jobs paid better than secretarial positions, she had to elbow her way in to the male-dominated field.

“Competition was fierce. A woman had to bring on her “A” game if she was going to hold down a job with all men,” Castile-Munoz said. “I was also a single mom. At times it was difficult to balance my job and my personal/family life.”

Again, she persisted. She has been employed at Metra since 1988. But the sting of a high school teacher’s words still tormented her. When that teacher, Mr. Alexander, said in 1979 that most of the minority kids in her school would never amount to much, she had told the teacher she wanted to go to college. He shot back, “You’ll never make it.”

With her defiance at that remark still burning, Castile-Munoz enrolled at National Louis University at age 50 in 2012. But on the first day of class, overwhelmed with talk of online classes and Power Point presentations, she gathered her things and started to walk out in defeat. A 24-year-old woman stopped her and said, “I wish my mom had the courage to come back to school. You’re not leaving.” That young woman promised to guide her through the technology, and Castile-Munoz obtained not only her bachelor’s but continued for her master’s -- in addition to being a full-time Metra employee and single mom.

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. It is within our failures that we learn how to succeed. It is within our struggles we learn to persevere,” Castile-Munoz told the huge audience at the Arie Crown Theater on NLU’s commencement day in June.

In the spirit of those words, Castile-Munoz announced to the crowd her next goal. She is enrolling to pursue her Ph.D.

Once again, she is pushing past limitations and tackling something no one ever thought she could. One wonders what Mr. Alexander would say to that.

Submitted by The Harbinger Group. Photo courtesy of The Harbinger Group.