One of the key phrases heard often at Aquinas College is, “Makes all the difference in the world.” Many students from diverse backgrounds, and with a variety of life-goals in mind, are a testament to that difference. Among those who can perhaps articulate it the most eloquently is Tricia Hilgendorf, a 2001 graduate of Aquinas College, teacher, parent, and recent recipient of a distinguished academic fellowship.

When asked to describe herself, Hilgendorf immediately cuts to the heart of her greatest love: teaching. “I wanted to be a teacher since I was a very small child, but I had my family very young,” she said. “I had two years of college done from when I was 18 at another place. I came back to Aquinas when I was about 35 or 36, and finished up my Bachelor’s Degree in Education. That was just the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, to be able to teach. So for ten years I’ve been teaching.”

Hilgendorf’s journey didn’t end there, however. After launching into her teaching career, she fell in love with teaching an unexpected subject. “Starting out, I was going to teach English. But at my first job, they needed a history teacher. So I was going to teach history for one semester, then go into an English position. Two weeks into teaching history, I thought, ‘This is it, for me. I love teaching history way more than I’m going to love teaching English!’”

To facilitate further knowledge as she educated young minds, Hilgendorf returned to Aquinas to enhance her own education. “I came back to Aquinas, and got a minor in history, then finished up a major in social studies, all at Aquinas. So it has taken me...thirteen years to get all this accomplished, but I’ve been teaching almost that whole time also. Now I am a history teacher at the Potter’s House, and I love it!”

“Aquinas was the place for me, because they just accommodated me,” Hilgendorf said of her experiences at Aquinas. “They worked around my crazy schedule, because I had three little kids at home, a busy family.” When discussing her work with students, Hilgendorf lights up. “For somebody to say, ‘tell me about you,’ it sounds like I’m talking about my career, but I am a teacher, through and through,” she said. “There’s a book that I read one time that resonated with me so much, about being who you are - ‘My Name is Asher Lev,’ by Chaim Potok. Asher was an artist; I am a teacher. It flows through my veins. Aquinas helped me achieve that goal.”

Hilgendorf is excited about her future plans. She is a recent recipient of a fellowship which will allow her to further her education. “For the last eight years, I’ve been wanting to get my Master’s degree,” she said. “I’ve been applying for eight years for the James Madison Foundation Fellowship, which is extremely hard to get. Hundreds of people apply. It was established through Congress to further the teaching of the Constitution, and one teacher per state gets it.”

After years of applying, Hilgendorf has been selected as the Michigan recipient. She described the application process, and her wait to know the results: “It’s a letter when you don’t get it. And every year, I have gotten a letter. Unless my birthday was on a Sunday, I have gotten the letter on my birthday - April 20 - that I did not get it, every year. And this year, on April 13, I came home and there was a package waiting for me. And I looked at the return address... I knew if I got a package it had to be all of the stuff that I needed to accept it. I, of course, started sobbing immediately, before I even opened the box.”

“I’ve always wanted to teach,” said Hilgendorf. “I would teach my dolls when I was three. I was always going to be a mommy and a teacher, and [now] I am a mom, and a teacher. Teaching is not my job. It’s not my vocation. It’s who I am. And if I’m not teaching in a classroom, I’m teaching somewhere. There’s nothing else that I can do, because it is what God has made me to be.”