The saying “If you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life” is the attitude of someone who experiences joy from what they do.

If this is true, then Mindy Badia, associate professor of Spanish and international studies, hasn’t worked in a long time.

Since starting at IU Southeast in 2000, she has remained passionate about what she does and has been passionate about teaching since her days as a student.

Badia started teaching in 1990, while she was still in graduate school at IU-Bloomington.

“I double-majored in French and Spanish as an undergrad, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it,” Badia said. “I started graduate school, and I got a graduate teaching assistantship. That was a really good experience. I figured out there that I liked teaching.”

Bonnie Reynolds, adjunct professor of Spanish, was Badia’s Spanish professor during her time at the University of Louisville. Badia and Reynolds are now colleagues at IU Southeast.

“I have known Mindy since her first day as an undergrad,” Reynolds said.

“She was in my Spanish conversation class, having tested into that level out of high school.”

Reynolds said IU Southeast is quite fortunate to have Badia on staff in the Spanish department.
“Her intelligence, her knowledge, her compassion and her willingness to share what she knows and what she has done with her students is what makes her a valuable professor at IU Southeast,” Reynolds said. “She was an outstanding student and, in my opinion, is an outstanding teacher and colleague.”

Sixteen years into her career at IU Southeast, Badia said she still enjoys teaching here at this campus.

“I get a new batch of students each semester,” she said. “Even if they are students I have had before, they are like new people. They have changed and grown since the last time I had them in class. I like teaching at a university because I have so much autonomy.”

Badia said she also enjoys IU Southeast’s student to professor ratio.

“Classes are small enough that you are able to get to know each student, particularly with the language majors,” Badia said. “With the required first four semesters, I get to know the students, but I really get to experience getting to know them when they are Spanish majors or minors.”

Badia’s teaching and admiration of the Spanish world recently took her to Puerto Rico where she was a speaker at the Gemela conference. The biennial conference explores women and gender in Spanish theater. Badia said she was one of over 50 speakers who attended the conference for the 20th anniversary of the organization.

This year’s program was titled “Forging Links Across Space and Time: Hispanic Women’s Cultural Production 1300-1800.” This was Badia’s fourth time having the privilege to both attend and speak at the conference.

Badia, who focuses on early modern Spanish literature and culture, said the Gemela conference is something she holds very dear to her.

“Gemela is quite special,” she said. “ In my field, people thought for a very long time that there were exactly two women writers from the period. This organization has done so much to dispel that myth; things like research on understudied authors, as well as critical editions and translations that make early modern women’s writing accessible to a wider audience.”
According to Reynolds, Badia has had an interest in Spanish theater since her days at the University of Louisville.

“She did a remarkable job as La Señora in a student production of the Chilean play, “El Delantal Blanco” by dramatist Sergio Vodanovic,” Reynolds said. “She wrote her honors thesis on the Puerto Rican dramatist Roberto Ramos-Perea.”

Badia said she hopes to continue to incorporate the talks of Spanish drama, feminism and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz into her lectures in the future, as well as the collaborative nature of the conference.

“The paper I wrote for the conference looks at a play Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote that says ‘I’m not sure we can really talk about this in terms of conventional gender hierarchies,’” she said.

Badia said part of her reading is informed by stage performance.

“The idea is that if you see this, I’m not sure most spectators would understand that stereotypes aren’t valid,” she said. “With that in mind, I will still talk in my lectures about her being a New World feminist, but inform everyone that we need to keep an open mind about what she’s trying to tell us.”

Keeping an open mind is something Badia said she takes to heart, whether it be about feminism in Spanish culture, or in daily life. She said she wants students at IU Southeast to know that anything is possible, no matter the major, and that the borders of where you come from or what you choose to study shouldn’t be limitations.

Badia said she urges students to keep an open mind. 

“I grew up only 30 minutes away in Louisville. I never dreamed that I would get a PH.D. in Spanish Literature. I never dreamed that I would get to travel to Spain and Latin America and have it be a part of my job,” Badia said. “You just really don’t know when you start college where life is going to take you.”

Badia said it is important to make sure you do something you are passionate about.

“I think that there is so much emphasis on having a career and a job, but if you end up being really unhappy in what you do, that’s not the way to go,” Badia said. “Don’t be afraid to do things that you love and to try hard things. To try new things.”