I think that it’s such a great learning experience for me to be interacting with people of your generation and I love teaching. I teach writing history, I teach U.S history, I teach women’s history and I’m very passionate about my subject matter. I love my students, I love my subject matter, and my dissertation which is the other element of my job at Clark. I’m writing an intellectual and cultural biography of a woman who was a 19th century reformer who spent time in Boston and in Worcester which is really cool and I didn’t realize how many synergies there would be when I started working on this project. But I’m very passionate about that and the things that she tried to accomplish for women that really have been swept under the rug because no one has really ever heard of her. Her name is Caroline Dall. So, she’s a real character. She really believed that women needed to be empowered to work even more importantly than they needed to be empowered to vote and so she spent a lot of time trying to find ways for women to become professionals in a lot of industries and ways for working-class women to have more fulfilling work themselves. She’s really an interesting character.
Melinda Marchand was born in 1968 in Newton, Massachusetts. She first arrived to Worcester in 1990 after graduating from Syracuse University and was hired by a company, 440 Financial Group. While working at 440 Financial Group, she attended Northeastern University to obtain a certificate in technical writing and software programming. After this accomplishment, she decided to pursue her master's degree in history. She attended Harvard University's Continuing Education program. After this, she attended Clark University’s Graduate School in the History doctoral program. She now works at Clark University as a Professor of History. When asked about what characteristics make Worcester unique, she responded that she believes the diversity is the largest factor. She also believes the political history is also one of the primary traits that makes Worcester unique. Melinda is a mother of two children, Eleri and Griffin and is very involved with her students and her work at Clark University. She enjoys teaching and writing about history as well as continuing her research in history.