English and World Languages chair Melancon receives 2025-26 MC’s Distinguished Faculty of the Year honor

Kristi Melancon, MC’s 2025-26 Distinguished Professor of the Year, enjoys watching the students in her English education program become successful practitioners.

Much of Kristi Melancon’s approach to education involves helping students rethink the things they take for granted.

Professor and chair of the Department of English and World Languages at Mississippi Christian University, Melancon challenges them with seemingly basic questions. Who can be an educator? What is knowledge? What is the power of language?

Drawn to experiential education, she enjoys involving students in hands-on learning, group activities, and discussions, and she delights in engaging them in field studies or service-learning courses outside the classroom.

“It’s important for them to see that they are called to take what they’re learning in college and make it useful to the larger community,” she said. “Whatever intellectual gifts we are able to refine here can be used for the public good.

“They have a responsibility to give back to the larger community.”

The sense of responsibility she instills in her students is one reason Melancon received MC’s Distinguished Professor of the Year Award for 2025-26 during the 2026 Honors Convocation on April 23 in Swor Auditorium in Nelson Hall.

“It is humbling to receive this award because it is decided by my colleagues and fellow faculty members,” Melancon said. “Many of the people who have previously received it have served as wonderful mentors to me. To be counted among them is really special.”

Among that group is David Miller, MC professor of English and World Languages, who received the award in 2013. Miller worked closely with Melancon on the department’s Strategic Planning Committee and revised and reimagined the curriculum for English majors and minors within the department. He describes his department chair as a person who cares about the individual first and then the tasks or requirements second.

“She demonstrates this by checking in with each person and following up on issues, concerns, life events and celebrations,” Miller said. “Within the classroom, she is outstanding. She is one of those rare teachers who not only knows her subject, but is able to communicate it in a way that is effective and enjoyable.

“Her Christianity is vital to her work, and she demonstrates the creative tensions between faith and learning in wonderful ways. She challenges students to think spiritually, humanely and carefully about issues across disciplines.”

Miller also emphasized Melancon’s supportive and collaborative nature.

“She supports student organizations with her time and attendance,” he said. “She handles the details of running a department and managing faculty with care and concern. She is collaborative, forgiving and challenging in all the right ways.

“She represents what this award should always be: the best of us all and an example to be emulated.”

Christian Pinnen, MC professor of history and political science, received the Distinguished Professor of the Year Award in 2024. He said Melancon, who co-founded the University’s African American Studies minor with him, stands apart as a scholar and a mentor who genuinely cares for others.

“She wants to do the best job she can and help as many students as she can,” Pinnen said. “It makes working with her easy and joyful, and it advances the cause of Christ in the process.

“She is a trusted colleague who is smart, driven, kind, resourceful and always puts students first. Her long list of faculty recognitions, her work in strategic planning and her resourcefulness have aided many members of the MC community. Her body of work is exemplary.”

Martha D'Amico, MC associate professor of Teacher Education and Leadership, chaired the department when Melancon served as coordinator for the English education program. She describes Melancon as the ultimate life-long learner.

“She reads and studies to gain knowledge and understanding for both professional and personal gain,” D’Amico said. “She is constantly refining her practice as an English professor and modeling the best instructional practices with her own students as many of them prepare to teach English at the secondary level. She advocates for both faculty and students and is extremely responsive to everyone in her care.

“She invests in her students and guides them through challenges and difficulties. The students admire her and hold her in high esteem as a teacher and role model. Dr. Melancon provides much of the same with her fellow faculty members as she does with her students. She advocates for others constantly and sincerely wants the best outcome for all.”

A New Orleans native, Melancon obtained her B.A. in English from the University of New Orleans and her Ph.D. in English rhetoric, writing and culture from Louisiana State University. Impressed by the writing program and the Christian mission at MC, she joined the University as an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition in 2011 and coordinated its English education program.

She worked her way up, becoming an associate professor, professor, and eventually chair of the department. Her areas of expertise include African American literacy, rhetoric and race, composition studies, and civic engagement.

Honored as the Distinguished Lecturer for the MC College of Arts and Sciences in 2017, Melancon received MC’s Pittman Young Faculty Award in 2016 and MC’s Carol C. West Faculty Advocate Award in 2022. She attends Holy Savior Catholic Church in Clinton with her husband, Rick, an English instructor at Hinds Community College, and their daughter, Nora.

After 15 years at MC, Melancon never gets tired of watching the students in her English education program become successful practitioners.

“I treasure the relationships I’m able to have with my students,” she said. “I have the opportunity to invest in them beyond the classroom, whether in faith conversations, financial conversations or discussions about what’s going on in their lives.

“Sitting in on a previous student’s English classroom at the local high school or seeing how my former students are impacting the lives of their students is what I enjoy most.”