Melanie was my teacher in women’s literature classes that were just being created for the first time in 1972 in Berkeley. She was part of an inspirational and passionate group of female grad students whose story is told in the book Marsha’s Salon. These women — all of them — showed me it was possible to be female and an intellectual. It was the greatest possible gift. It set my course as a women’s studies teacher and an activist, like Melanie modeled for me and so many others.
—Lauren Coodley