Melissa Wells is a professor in the College of Education
by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
For the past several years, education news has been full of stories about teacher shortages, educators leaving the profession, declining test scores and combative school board meetings.
But this gloomy landscape is not what Melissa Wells, an associate professor at the University of Mary Washington’s College of Education, sees when she looks at the faces of her first-year students.
“For me, it’s so exciting to see the students who come at the very beginning of their pathway in the College of Education and watch them blossom and realize they can do this and be amazing at this,” said Wells.
The passion Wells has for nurturing confident and professional future educators has earned her statewide recognition in the form of a 2024 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education.
Since 1987, the Outstanding Faculty Awards have recognized superior accomplishments in teaching, research and public service. They are the Commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private institutions of higher learning.
Nominees are selected by their institutions, reviewed by a panel of peers and chosen by a committee of leaders from the public and private sectors.
The awards were announced last month and will be presented to Wells and 11 other recipients at a ceremony in Richmond in March.
“In my experience, it is rare to find a teacher educator who combines top-notch scholarly expertise with the ‘wisdom of practice’ of the K-12 Master Teacher,” said Pete Kelly, dean of UMW’s College of Education, in his nomination of Wells for the award.
Wells has been part of UMW’s faculty since 2017 and was an elementary school teacher for eight years prior. She has a Ph.D. in language and literacy and in addition to teaching, conducts research in family engagement related to early childhood, literacy and arts integration.
Her approach to preparing students for careers as educators is to balance both the positive, rewarding aspects with the realities of the career.
“We don’t want to paint a false narrative. I’m always very clear with them that the work is hard but that it’s amazing,” Wells said. “No other profession is quite like teaching, where you get to personally see how a student grows academically, socially and emotionally in your care for a semester or year, depending on nature of job.”
She said it’s important that both society and future teachers themselves understand that they are highly trained professionals and that the job requires flexibility.
“Teaching, just like learning, is not a one-size fits all profession,” Wells said. “We get to reinvent ourselves every single year. To me, that’s one of the biggest advantages of being a teacher.”
Wells is dedicated to providing a strong foundation for her students that will support flexibility. Speaking about her experience teaching kindergarteners to read, she said, “One of my biggest goals was to get them to realize the magic that reading and writing can hold.”
“Both of these allow us to explore our world and share our experiences with audiences beyond ourselves,” Wells said. “If we focus on those main goals, everything falls into line.”
She tells her students that there is no “magic bullet” that will work for all kids, but that they can draw on their foundational knowledge and understanding of the larger goal to meet individuals where they are.
Wells also makes sure her student teachers know how to take care of themselves.
“I tell them that we can’t bring our best selves to our students if we’re not taking care of ourselves,” she said. That can require scheduling time for something else that is meaningful (for Wells, that’s music—she’s part of several local choral and handbell ensembles) or realizing that it’s OK to say “no.”
“We are socialized into the idea that saying ‘Yes’ is always the best, but sometimes ‘no’ is an answer that is better for everyone,” Wells said.
As a professor, Wells is known for creating opportunities for students to be involved in the community and in their own learning. Students in her classes have written and illustrated children’s books, which are donated to local classrooms and to the downtown StoryWalk through a partnership with the Fredericksburg Parks, Recreation and Events Department.
In the personal statement accompanying her nomination for the Outstanding Faculty Award, Wells wrote, “At every stage of my career, students…have changed my identity as an educator. Because of them, I prioritize teaching with empathy, innovation, accessibility and authenticity. I thrive when students bring their own stories, gifts and talents into spaces they share with me. In my teaching, I intentionally craft learning experiences that provide learners with choice, relevance and responsiveness.”
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