He matriculated at the City College of New York where he was Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year and graduated in 1947.

[1] Benardo served as the second president of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in 1969.

The ACTFL Leo Benardo Award for Innovation in K-12 Language Education was established in 2014 and is granted annually.

[2] Benardo was President of Phi Beta Kappa, Gamma Chapter at the City College of New York in 1989.

[3] For 27 years, Benardo taught Spanish, French, and Comparative Literature at Baruch College until 2014.