By Ben Gonzalez
Adorned in a precious stone necklace and matching low-hanging earrings, LaWanda Kamalidiin makes an impression. She wears pinkish-purple lipstick and her hair is gray and cut short.
Kamalidiin, or “Ms. K,” as the students in the Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering (CMSE) call her — has her own space nestled in the back corner of the Engineering Student Affairs Office. It’s an eclectic but confined mess — African art, LEGO kits, awards, stacks of binders, photos pinned above her desk — indicative of the many years Kamalidiin has spent at the university.
Her binders hold everything Kamalidiin has worked on all these years as CMSE assistant director: helping students, namely students underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, succeed.
Kamalidiin was born Nov. 30, 1951 in Durham, North Carolina to Eddie Saddler Sr. and Willie Bruce Saddler. She is the oldest of three children. She is divorced and has two daughters, Ja’Net Lyons and Kenise Lyons.
Kamalidiin graduated from North Carolina Central University with a degree in political science, and went on to work at the Durham County Mental Health Center. After that, she worked at the Duke University Medical Center for nine years. She later moved on to the National Black United Fund in Albany, New York, where she worked with a group of pre-college students in a summer program. When her contract ended, she went to work for the New York State Legislature in the deputy speaker’s office.
“It was very interesting, but it was very demanding,” Kamalidiin said about her job at the New York State Legislature. “Demanding in a way that sometimes wasn’t always respectful to me as a woman, so I just decided I no longer wanted to do that.”
She started a business cleaning houses after moving on from the state legislature position. Just a few weeks later, she was contacted by a colleague from the deputy speaker’s office about an opening at the State University of New York at Albany for someone to lead one of their pre-college programs.
“And that was the beginning of my journey working with pre-college students,” Kamalidiin said. “Once I started working with pre-college students and programs, [I realized] that was for me.”
After two years of working as the program coordinator for the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), she learned of an opportunity in Maryland.
Kamalidiin accepted a position in the CMSE in January 1990 and has worked there ever since. In her almost 29 years at the University of Maryland, Kamalidiin has started a number of summer programs geared toward recruiting minority students into STEM. She has also served as advisor for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers since her early days.
Avery Layne, a senior mechanical engineering major and former president of the Black Engineering Society, has known Kamalidiin for three years.
“She’s taken the time to help me and other students work through problems related to our academics and our struggles as leaders of on-campus organizations,” Layne said.
Assistant Director for Employer Relations Deborah Vidmar has known Kamalidiin for 16 years.
“I’ve known her to be kind, smart, funny, generous and completely accessible, both as a colleague and a mentor for students,” Vidmar said. “She cares a great deal about students and never loses that as her focus.”
Beyond her commitment to students at the University of Maryland, Kamalidiin dedicates time to her church, Mount Jezreel Baptist in Silver Spring. She said her pastor encourages congregation members to really take the time to learn in studying the Bible. Kamalidiin took this message and earned a Master of Divinity from Howard University in 2008. While there, she met now Rev. Toni Ross.
“The personality that she so often expresses is her genuine respect for others,” Ross said. “It is so evident in everything that she does, and it makes being in her presence uplifting.”
Kamalidiin is an ordained minister at her church. She preaches at a nursing home twice a month and teaches a course at her church’s Bible institute.She said when her students find out she is an ordained minister, they often ask her for life advice on things that might be going on in their lives.
“I have loved every minute I have been in this job,” Kamalidiin said.
Kamalidiin plans to continue working, but upon retiring, she said she will pass on some of her binders to the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers so that they may preserve their chapter’s history.