There are many amazing professors here at Thomas College that have had an amazing impact on the community and the students including Dr. Kelly Mechling. Dr. Mechling is an English/Literature Professor here at Thomas and has quite a creative mindset and it translates to the classroom. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her to discuss her life as an educator. Throughout the interview, she interpreted her journey as an amazing, creative, and crazy experience that she has fully loved.
Kelly Mechling moved to Maine with her daughter from Pennsylvania in 1997. She didn’t know a “soul” here in Maine, so it was quite the big change. She had been looking for teaching positions in the Waterville area, and that’s when she stumbled across the small community of Thomas College. “It felt like it was a family,” she said with a smile. “Very friendly folks here, and it felt like the right fit.” Kelly Mechling included that she was nervous about moving into a new place she wasn’t accustomed to, but Thomas’s inclusive community made her feel just at home. However, before her time at Thomas, she was very passionate about writing and literature. As a child she wrote poetry, plays, short stories— and the best part is she has all these writings in scrapbooks and boxes. She continued to write all her life through her college years, but it wasn’t until her family encouraged her to get her master’s degree and PhD that she wanted to be a writing professor. “It was hard,” she said with a giggle. “But I persevered and now I’m here.”
When she was asked what she was most proud of as a professor, she smiled instantly and thought thoroughly before she answered. “I would say the students that I have impacted over the years,” she exuberantly stated. “Even today, students said that I helped them through tough times with my classes and the writings that they have done have helped them push to them to where the light is.” She receives old writings from them such as haikus, poems, and short stories that they have made. It makes her elated that she has been a bright spot in her students’ lives, and they have found the light in life just from the form of writing. Kelly Mechling believes that writing can transform lives even if it isn’t their favorite thing to do and hopes that her classes can bring a new happy perspective on writing. The writing prompts and the creative part really give students the opportunity to self-explore and enjoy writing. Some of her former and present students have their own fun activities such as online writing, teaching writing, and other forms of writing. She finished off saying that her students’ hard work and determination in life and writing is something she is most proud of because they have left an incredible impact on her as well.
Professor Kelly Mechling finished off the discussion with a statement about how happy she is to be an English Professor here at Thomas College.
She is an incredible professor at Thomas and has left an amazing influence on many students’ lives here, including mine. She has given the students the opportunity to be authentic, creative, and express themselves through the form of writing. If you are a student at Thomas College and looking for electives, I suggest you take a Dr. Mechling class— it might be an unforgettable class.
By Wallace Savoy ’25, English student