Spartanburg
FY2025– Present
Melissa Walker is the Emerita George Dean Johnson, Jr. Professor of History at Converse University where she taught for 21 years. A native of Tennessee, she is a graduate of Maryville College and earned her Ph.D. in U.S. and women’s history at Clark University. An award-winning teacher, she is also the author, editor, or co-editor of twelve books. In 2007, she was honored by CASE and the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching with the South Carolina Professor of the Year Award. She retired from teaching in 2017 to found Heyday Coaching, LLC which specializes in life and career coaching for people working in higher education and other mid-career professionals. The business takes its name from women’s suffrage activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s assertion that “fifty, not fifteen is the heyday of life.”
