What’s your real major?”
Sharon Sledge blinked. Then the university department chair leveled another zinger: “We don’t have female engineers.”
In the 1970s, that conversation was enough to redirect a career. Sledge pivoted from engineering to math, a field she loved just as much. Although the equation changed, the calling didn’t.
Now, for more than four decades at San Jacinto College, Sledge has focused on one constant: helping students discover what they can achieve.
From industry to instruction
Sledge’s route to San Jac started in industry.
After earning a master’s degree in applied mathematics, Sledge joined a Houston electric company, bidding jobs, reading blueprints, and helping design fire systems for Shell. She even turned down a job offer from the CIA.
Despite equal or stronger skills than her male peers, she was earning a much lower paycheck. The imbalance frustrated — and motivated — her.
“What seemed devastating at the moment put me on the track where I needed to go,” she said.
Recalculating, Sledge switched to the classroom. After teaching full time at Pasadena High School and part time at San Jac, she became a full-time math professor at the Central Campus in 1981.
Her teaching style involves showing the process, then throwing students into the water to swim on their own. If they’re truly sinking, she tosses them a life preserver.
“I’m a firm believer your math teacher makes or breaks you,” she said. “If people don’t like math, they can usually give you the name of a teacher who was responsible.”
Formulas into futures
At San Jac, Sledge has served as a professor, department chair, and division chair of science and math. Now she’s back in the classroom.
In every role, she has advocated for practical tools: tutoring labs, graphing calculators, and courses that connect numbers to real life.
“What adult doesn’t use a calculator?” she said. “If I go to work, I use tools. Engineers use tools.”
Today, Sledge teaches pre-calculus, calculus, and a math literacy course for non-STEM majors who need to learn loan interest and logic rather than derivatives and integrals.
“I like math to fit in with the life you want to live,” she said.
Her classroom culture is simple: “It’s OK if you don’t know it, but it’s not OK not to ask.”
Her office door stays open. Some students never cross the threshold, while others walk in unsure and walk out more confident.
Years later, the results compound. One former student now teaches Advanced Placement calculus. Another, nearly a dropout, recently earned a Ph.D. in physics.
“I would never have finished a bachelor’s degree without you,” he told her.
Multiplying impact
Beyond calculus, Sledge helps run the Central Campus robotics lab, a bright workspace with 3D printers, CNC routers, and double-wide tables for teamwork.
Sledge’s robotics work stretches back nearly 25 years, when she led a grant that brought middle school teachers nationwide to NASA to create STEM lessons around Lego robots.
That connection led to a partnership with U.S. FIRST Robotics, which moved its Houston-area Tech Challenge to San Jac. Since 2004, Sledge has coordinated competitions, trained coaches and students, and opened the robotics lab to roughly 170 regional middle and high school teams.
Thanks to this home training, local teams have excelled internationally. In 2025, four local teams ranked in the world’s top 10 during play season, with two finishing in the top four overall.
Sledge also coordinates summer robotics camps, giving kids a chance to build, fail, and try again.
“The knowledge is so important, but the confidence it brings … that’s the most important thing,” she said.
Calculated legacy
Celebrating her 45th year at San Jac, Sledge still finds energy in teaching young STEM students and those returning to college after decades.
“Learning new things is the most exciting part of life,” she said. “Sometimes it’s learning how to take something you know and do something else with it.”
For someone who solves complex calculations, it’s the simplest that stumps her.
“I’ll be 74 this year,” Sledge said. “I have to really calculate my age.”
Summer Fun
Got grandkids or other youngsters who need to beat boredom this summer?
Learn more about San Jac’s summer camps.
By Courtney Morris
