2024-2025 GPSG President Tamra Walderon: A Legacy of Resilience, Leadership and Advocacy

COLLEGE STATION, June 3, 2025 – When outgoing 2024-2025 Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG) President Tamra Walderon first stepped onto the Texas A&M University campus in 2018 during a college tour for her niece, she did not expect her life to shift so profoundly. However, standing in Academic Plaza and listening to the tour guide speak about Silver Taps, Walderon, who has endured the loss of loved ones, including a child, felt something stir deep within her.

"I remember the guide saying, ‘A&M remembers.’ And in that moment, I stood there crying, surrounded by strangers, because something told me this was where my healing would begin," Walderon recalled. 

The Road to College

Born in San Marcos and raised in Pflugerville, Texas, Walderon’s story is rooted in both promise and adversity. As a child, she demonstrated academic aptitude and determination, even joining her middle school football team, a rare feat for a young girl at the time. But behind her strong exterior, she carried the weight of instability at home. At just 14, Walderon left high school to work full-time and became a mother soon after. "It wasn’t that I didn’t want to finish school," she said. "I just didn’t have the choice. Survival came first."

Her early adulthood brought no reprieve, facing domestic violence, financial hardship and loss. Still, she chose to pursue education. She earned her GED and then approached the advising office at Austin Community College (ACC), wanting to begin college but uncertain about her next steps. 

The first enrollment advisor she met at ACC looked at her transcript and said, "Maybe you should consider something else.” Walderon was discouraged, but persistent. She booked a second appointment and met with a different advisor who told her that he saw potential in her. "To have someone else believe in me changed everything," she said.

She began classes at ACC while juggling motherhood and part-time jobs, including driving a school bus, a position she loved but had to relinquish to qualify for aid. As she advanced academically, personal tragedy struck. Between 2012 and 2016, she lost her father, her last two living grandparents and most devastatingly, her 22-month-old daughter, Annabelle. 

"There were days I didn’t know how I got out of bed," she said. "But I kept thinking, 'my kids are watching. If I stop, what example do I leave them?'" 
 

Becoming an Aggie

Flashing forward to 2018, after that initial campus tour in which she learned about Silver Taps, she applied to transfer from ACC to Texas A&M to pursue a degree in curriculum and instruction in the Department of Educational Psychology. She wrote in her application that her own struggles in accessing education inspired her to pursue a degree that would enable her to help make education more accessible to others. She was accepted. 

"I was so overjoyed," she said. "Not just because I got in, but because someone looked past the checklist and saw my journey."

Co-enrolled at courses at Blinn College, ACC and Texas A&M, and commuting over 70 miles to College Station from her home in Thorndale, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction in 2022 through the 4+1 combination program. Then she immediately began the Ph.D. program in educational psychology with a focus on bilingual education. 

In 2019, while still an undergrad, a professor invited her to join the Center for Research and Development in Dual Language and Literacy Acquisition. Over the next five years, Walderon co-authored eight textbooks and helped lead multimillion-dollar initiatives focused on bilingual education in Texas. 

"It wasn’t glamorous work -- with all the deadlines and stress -- but it mattered. We were changing how bilingual students are supported. I wasn’t just a name on a page; I was shaping the message," she said. 
 

GPSG Presidency

In 2023, she received an email invitation urging graduate students to consider serving in the Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG), including the opportunity to run for President. 

"Honestly, I laughed at first. I thought, ‘They must have emailed the wrong person.’ But then I realized, maybe I am exactly the kind of person who needs to run," she said. 

Walderon was elected. As President, she cites a number of notable accomplishments. She oversaw a full structural overhaul of GPSG’s constitution and bylaws, hiring a higher education consultant to guide the process. She expanded the Stand Out & Succeed initiative to reach not only industry-focused students but also those in academic and research careers. Most notably, she led the launch of the Graduate Student Experience Study, an institutional-scale effort to understand the graduate and professional student experience and identify areas for enhancing it.

"I kept hearing, ‘We don’t have the data.’ So we collected it. If you want to advocate effectively, you need to show the full picture, not just the loudest voices." 

Walderon emphasized the importance of understanding graduate students' diversity of experiences in order to effectively provide services for them that enable them to reach their potential. "We are researchers, yes. But we’re also caregivers, workers, teachers and survivors. We cannot separate our identities from our needs. That’s why GPSG must be more than a student body, it has to be an advocacy engine." 

She was particularly moved by the openness she encountered in university administration. "People assume leadership is distant, uncaring. But what I learned is many administrators want to help, they just don’t always know where the issues are. Our job is to speak clearly and more importantly, to speak up." 

Walderon now shares that message with future student leaders: 

"You don’t need to know every rule in the book. You just need to care and be willing to learn. Leadership isn’t about confidence; it’s about conviction."
 
As her year as GPSG president comes to a close, Walderon will focus more intently on finishing her dissertation, which examines how ESL instructional strategies and artificial intelligence tools can support rural and under-resourced classrooms. Her research seeks to empower teachers rather than replace them—positioning AI as a supportive framework rather than a substitute.
 
At the same time, she remains deeply committed to the ongoing work of GPSG and emphasizes the importance of continuity in leadership. “One year is never enough,” she says. “It's important for the next administration to continue the work of the predecessor. In our case, that's advocating for structural support, better communication across departments and true inclusivity for all graduate students. There’s still so much more to do.” 

Tamra Walderon will be succeeded by Marcus Glass.