Ever wonder what makes PSU’s academic leaders tick? What books line their shelves, what inspired them to pursue their field and what visions they have for PSU’s future? Inside Portland State’s “Deans Decoded” series takes you behind the scenes into the offices of Portland State’s distinguished deans. Join us as we decode the personalities behind the titles, one dean at a time.
For Dean Leroy Bynum, Jr., DMA, presiding over PSU’s College of the Arts life is like a nonstop “busman’s holiday,” with student performances, recitals, exhibits and film showcases filling his free time. A former opera student, Bynum was inspired by mentors who fueled his performing career and ignited a passion for teaching. His transitions from professor to administrator emerged as he discovered a talent for nurturing departmental growth. Under his leadership, PSU's art, architecture, film, music and theater programs have flourished, and he eagerly anticipates the May 2026 completion of the new building for the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design.
Inside Portland State’s Ruben Gil Herrera sat down with Dean Bynum to chat about his background and what he’s looking forward to at PSU. Watch the video or read the full interview below to learn more.
RGH: How do you start your day?
LB: Well, I usually start my day with Buster time. I have a 90 pound lab named Buster. He's a pandemic pup who is demanding of my attention as soon as I get up in the morning. So we have Buster time. From there, it is morning
ablutions, and then from there, as I'm a singer, I do vocal warmups for half hour to 45 minutes to get the voice ready for the day. And then I check in to my computer and see what my day looks like because I kind of like to know what I'm about to get into as I come onto campus, and that's how I start.
RGH: And where did you grow up?
LB: I was born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in North Carolina.
RGH: How do you spend your free time?
LB: There's several passions that I have. I love to cook and I love to eat, obviously, and I spend a lot of time traveling, biking and hiking, and I'm an avid reader.
RGH: What is the coolest thing you’ve ever made?
LB: The coolest thing I ever made? I have to mention this because I love to cook. I made a four-tier wedding cake for my best friend's wedding 15 years ago, and it turned out beautifully.
RGH: What are you most excited about right now?
LB: That's an easy one. There's a brand new building being constructed right down the street from here. It's the new Schnitzer School of Art, Art History and Design. It is expected to be finished next May, and I am beyond excited about it. I try to go over there at least once or twice a week and get selfies in front of the building. As a matter of fact, they actually know that I'm coming. Many of the workers see me and some will even come down and get in the selfie with me. So I expect to keep that tradition going until the building is finished.
The other thing I'm excited about is a project that's in the offing, the new Performing Arts and Cultural Center that PSU is about to undertake with the city. It's a proposal that we were invited to join in by the city because they have to reimagine the performing facility that they have now, the Keller Auditorium, which has been deemed structurally unfit to withstand a powerful earthquake. As part of the new arts center, PSU will also develop a smaller concert hall as well as academic spaces to house our incredible instrumental and choral music program that we have at PSU. So it's going to be a wonderful complex once it's completed.
RGH: What's some of the most arcane knowledge or random or oddest or niche knowledge that you know?
LB: I know more facts than most individuals on earth, even in North Carolina, about North Carolina. I know these incredibly arcane things like the state bird and our state motto and our state song and the oldest cities of the state, because I had a fifth grade teacher, Miss E.O. Jones, who really awakened the desire for learning in me. She thought that it would be great if her class could learn all of this information about North Carolina. She put it all on flashcards and she made a game of it. So, I remembered all of that information because of course you want to win that game. Ask me anything about North Carolina and I bet I can answer it.
RGB: How about giving us some of your favorite facts.
LB: Two random facts. Okay. Of course, the easy ones: the state bird is the cardinal and the state tree is the dogwood. The state song is “The Old North State Forever.” Nobody knows that. And I could even sing it for you, but I won't. And the three oldest cities in North Carolina are Bath, New Bern and Edenton. Ta-da.
RGB: What are some of your highlights from your time at Portland State?
LB: I think of all the questions that's probably the hardest, and not because I can't think of any. It's because there's just so many. I preside over the College of the Arts. We do stuff. We're creative, we have concerts, we have recitals, we have portfolio reviews, we have thesis shows, we have art exhibitions, we have film showcases and film reviews so I get to attend all of those. It's a busman's holiday for me. The concerts are incredible — chamber singers perform as well as our university choir and the Thorn Choir and the Rose Choir and our opera program. Our opera program is one of the best in the country, and the performances are just absolutely spectacular. I look forward to seeing all of those every year. I look forward to our film showcases. Our film students are amazing. And the work that they do in art and design… they have these activities for students called Fresh and Be Honest, which are portfolio reviews as well as opportunities for students to get to show the clients in the world of graphic design, as well as friends and parents, what they can do. It's an incredible experience. I love that.
Our Pickathon festival in Portland, of course, it's huge. It's known all over the world. And our architecture program at PSU plays a huge part in that success.They build a stage every year, and it's an amazing, phenomenal stage. Every year that I can, I go and see that incredible stage and listen to great music for three days. And the list goes on and on. I was reluctant to even start listing things. I know I'll leave something out . . . our theater program, the wonderful performances there. So those are the highlights.
RGH: Besides being dean of the College of the Arts, you're also a trained singer with a performance career behind you. What were some of your favorite roles and works to sing?
LB: It's interesting that you separated my favorite roles from my favorite works to sing because they're not always the same. I'll give you an example. There's an opera called Carmen, by Georges Bizet. That is one of my favorite operas in the world to sing. The music, especially for the tenor role, is absolutely gorgeous music and it fits my voice beautifully, but the character is awful. It's a terrible, terrible character.
Dean Leroy Bynum as Don José in Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen.
Another one with great music to sing but really a not-so-great character is Don Giovanni, which is the story of Don Juan, and the character that I play is not Don Juan. It's one of the other counts who has had his wife seduced by Don Juan, and so of course he goes off to seek vengeance for Don Juan having had his way with his wife. Well, that's great music, but it's not such a great role.
Now, stuff that I just love to sing that's not necessarily operatic? There's some great music for voice and orchestra. Benjamin Britten is the name that comes to mind immediately. He's written some great pieces for tenor, horn and string instruments, and I've done them all and I love them, and so oh my God, the list goes on.
RGH: What led you to transition from a performance career to teaching in higher ed?
LB: Well, I kind of always wanted to teach, even when I was thinking about a career as a singer, and I've been wanting to be a singer ever since I was old enough to know what a singer was. I was very fortunate in undergraduate school as well as graduate school to have had teachers who are also mentors.
And at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where I first began to study, was a woman by the name of Martha Flowers. She was an African American singer who was well regarded on stages around the world, but especially in New York and New York City Opera. She came to teach towards the end of her career at University of North Carolina and she became a mentor for many of us. But what she did is she gracefully moved into the universe of teaching while still maintaining a very active performance career. And then I thought, oh, that's what I want to do. I want to be an active performer, but I also want to be able to teach.
Now, the bigger transition was going from that to an administrator at my institution in Albany. I was able to start and nurture and grow a very highly regarded opera program that really captured the attention of everyone around the state. Well, that sort of shone a spotlight on my organizational style because if you know anything about opera, it has so many moving pieces that you've got to be an incredibly, incredibly good business person and well organized in order to be able to pull something like that off.
That showed administrators that I had those types of organizational skills. So I kept being courted into administration and I kept refusing. And then of course, after a while, I thought, okay, and I gave in.
RGH: What are some favorite things in your office?
LB: This was the helmet that I wore, and that shovel, for the groundbreaking of the art building, so that holds a special place in my heart.
The artwork that you see on the wall are from students and former faculty. That's a former faculty member's artwork here. That piece is by one of our students, and the piece in the back is also from a person affiliated with Portland State.
The pièce de résistance here, this kimono, was actually a costume that was created some years ago for one of our theatrical productions here, but it's so beautiful, as you can see. And I didn't have this hung this way. It was done like this before I got here and I'm so glad it was, but the person who had this done thinks like I do. You know, why would we want to relegate this beautiful costume to costume shop purgatory for the rest of its life? Why not hang it in a way that it can be enjoyed by everybody? So that's really a cool piece there that I love looking at.
Ooh, and then there is Elmo. I mean, when you're having a hard day, who doesn't want to hear this?
Elmo: That tickles.
LB: You got to love that, you know, and he's been with me for 25 years. The batteries in him are probably that old because I don't think I've changed them once. And if I really need to laugh —
Elmo: That tickles. Oh boy!
LB: How can you not love this? So, on those days, Elmo gets me through it.