Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a five-part series profiling leaders of diverse communities on and off campus in Athens.
As a political science and music major at Heidelberg College, Melissa Wales wasn’t quite sure what her passion was, but a march in Washington D.C. changed that.
Since that march to fight homelessness, Wales has committed her life to fighting social injustices, and as the executive director of United Campus Ministry, she has the ability to wage that war.
One of Wales’ best friends was actively involved in social issues and told her about the march in D.C.
“I had never done something like that in my life, but she was my best friend, so we went out to Washington,” Wales said. “That was really an important moment for me because I was learning about social injustices and movements for social change.”
Wales first moved to Athens in 1998 with her now-husband Greg Kessler, director of the Language Resource Center and assistant professor of computer-assisted language learning in the linguistics department, after he accepted a faculty position at Ohio University.
Kessler said they first met at a poetry reading near Ohio State’s campus in 1997 after he offered to make her dinner.
They married at Lake Hope State Park in 2001 and have two sons, Zachary, 10, and Benjamin, 6.
Wales enrolled in the international master’s program a year after arriving in Athens and became the program coordinator at UCM while studying. After the director left in 2004 and after serving a year as interim director, Wales became executive director in 2005.
“UCM has such a deep, long and rich history in this community, and I feel like I’m sort of a caretaker,” she said. “I need to do everything I can to make this place feel vital and relevant to both the community and students.”
Wales said she is interested in building bridges across faith communities and wants to engage students on social issues.
“We try to help students learn more about issues facing our communities and our world,” she said. “We are also here to mentor them and help them figure out who they are and who they want to be in the world.”
Rachel Hyden, a 2012 OU graduate and former UCM intern and campus organizer for the Better Together campaign, said Wales had the biggest impact on her college career.
“It wasn’t until I got the internship (at UCM) that I had the drive for my studies and knew what I wanted to do with my life,” she said. “Melissa was, and still is, my mentor and she is the person I can go to ask questions.”
Wales is one of the best people to know on campus, Hyden added.
“Melissa puts her students before herself,” Hyden said. “She is so supporting, selfless, driven and an all-around good person.”
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