West Virginia Living Magazine, October 2020

The mothers, the millennials, and the mavens. Changing our communities.

The Connector

Melanie Page is a big believer in going straight to the people she might be able to help.

She also spends one-on-one time with as many faculty members at West Virginia University as she can get to. She works as the associate vice president for creative and scholarly activity in the research office and is charged with facilitating faculty success in achieving greater external support and recognition for their creative and scholarly work. The time she spends is critical in helping faculty members achieve their highest potential, and she simultaneously thinks structurally and networks to develop support for faculty from a higher level.

Page’s typical day covers a wide range of topics and efforts, anything from mentoring to meetings on structural barriers or even roundtables on how to better support women in STEM. “I’m constantly on the lookout for who needs to know who,” says Page, who networks naturally to make faculty members’ lives easier at WVU.

Page is committed to building a foundation for other women in West Virginia and facilitating connections to help faculty best help their students to succeed.