UOPX alumni spotlight: Sheila Dedeaux

When Sheila Dedeaux (BSM/B, 2008) looks back on her career, she can pinpoint the moment that set the tone for her work ethic and career: It was the part-time job at a bank, a role she started while in high school.

“It was the coolest job ever,” Dedeaux says, highlighting the all-women staff’s lesson in female empowerment and support.

It was also a role that would show her what was possible if she worked hard and made the most of her opportunities. Those were seeds that Dedeaux would sow and reap over the course of her life. But she had to figure out what she wanted and needed from life first.

Dedeaux, the youngest of 11 in her family, wasn’t sure if she could go on from that “grown-up job” to become a first-generation college student. So, her co-workers “sprang into action,” she says, filling out her loan packet to help her enroll. As Dedeaux puts it: “Total girl power saved the day.”

During the second year of her undergraduate experience, Dedeaux “hit a brick wall.” She was working multiple full-time jobs to stay afloat, and it was just too much. She left school, got married and started a career in wireless telecommunication. If she hadn’t exactly broken through that brick wall, she’d sidestepped it to become a manager with a team of more than 40 people at T-Mobile.

As Dedeaux matured, so did her industry. “Early in my career in the wireless space, it was about the experience in the wireless industry,” she explains. “That’s what got your foot in the door. But fast-forward to the tech industry today, and you have lots of people coming [in who] have no wireless experience. They’ve got the academic experience.”

It seemed Dedeaux had bypassed that brick wall only to hit a ceiling, all while juggling two young kids at home and a long commute to work. These were challenging circumstances, but Dedeaux’s response wasn’t to give up. It was to take on more.

Twenty years after dropping out of college, she began to explore schools and found University of Phoenix. Dedeaux liked what she saw, but she remembered what it was like to take on too much, and she wasn’t sure if she could swing earning her bachelor’s degree with arguably even more going on in her life.

Once again, it was “total girl power” that saved the day: Dedeaux spent hours on the phone with another woman — a University of Phoenix enrollment representative — who walked her through what her experience would look like and what she could achieve by earning her Bachelor of Science in Management.

“I could see it,” Dedeaux says.

Dedeaux thrived at UOPX, largely thanks to its flexibility. She cites the ability to take breaks if necessary, but rather than taking it slow and steady, Dedeaux felt a sense of urgency. 

It was flexible, but it wasn’t easy. Dedeaux was waking up at 4 a.m. to study. “My 2-year-old would lie in my lap while I tapped on the keyboard,” she says. Then, she would get her kids ready for the day and drive more than an hour to work — and because her office had more reliable internet than her home, she stayed late to study more. She even went to the office on weekends to take advantage of the connection.

Dedeaux was energized every time she completed a course. “I had tackled another one, just crossing them off the list,” she says. She wasn’t doing it alone. Her husband cared for their kids, and Dedeaux had a huge network of tutors and support at the University.

“Probably the biggest challenge was when I was taking the math classes, because math was just never my thing,” says Dedeaux.

She devoted part of her weekends to working through self-paced tutorials that prompted her to repeat the questions on which she stumbled the most. “I spent more time in the math lab than they probably expected,” she says with a laugh. The practice paid off.

Dedeaux also took advantage of the Center for Writing Excellence, fine-tuning her essays and thriving on the feedback. She remembers the instructors most fondly: They provided reassurance when Dedeaux needed it, and helped her push through the toughest assignments.

After two years, Dedeaux completed her bachelor’s degree in management, but she’s not done growing.

Dedeaux’s dedication to her professional development was contagious: Her husband enrolled in a degree program as soon as she finished hers. But Dedeaux’s newfound appreciation for lifelong learning made its biggest impact at work, where she currently manages 80 people. With her new foundational knowledge, she began to see herself through her employees’ eyes.

“People don’t follow you as their leader simply because you’re in charge,” she says. “You don’t get the respect that way. They’ve got to see that you are the leader.”

Dedeaux did this by applying what she learned at UOPX. She recast her team as people with their own career paths and interests, not just cogs in a machine. “I was originally the kind of leader [who] was really focused on teaching people how to do that one exact job,” she says, “not the type of leader [who] was developing people — until I went to University of Phoenix.”

This eagerness to develop employees stuck with Katrina Fortney, who was Dedeaux’s manager when her company merged with T-Mobile in 2020. Fortney recalls Dedeaux “bringing her unique perspective and years of experience as a people manager to the table to navigate achieving the team’s goals,” she says.

Developing people requires insight and patience, but Dedeaux brings something more, according to Fortney. “She does this with grace, so much so that sometimes you don’t even know she’s doing it!” Fortney says.

Today, Dedeaux’s children are pursuing their own degrees, with her oldest set to graduate in May. She’s grateful she could support them so they could focus fully on their education, and not juggle work and family the way she did.

That said, she also hopes they understand the drive and conviction she needed to get where she is — and then find the same strength in themselves.

“Everything that UOPX poured into me really helped with my confidence, my drive, my knowledge,” Dedeaux says. “That then coupled with my experience — that was the biggest confidence boost I could ever have. There’s something about that feeling that you have everything you need in your toolbox to be successful.”

Find out if your employer is one of the more than 1,500 organizations University of Phoenix works with to offer education benefits.

Meet Phoenixes like Sheila. Make connections, build relationships and be part of a growing community. Join a chapter.