Brief: To Span the Gap

Caiden Shell, a member of Hillcrest High School Class of 2026, works on a Saturday College activity. / Owen Withycombe

Fourth-generation educator Melanie C. Gordon often proclaimed to her parents, “I’ll never be a teacher.” But destiny sometimes makes us swallow our words.

Gordon, former assistant university chaplain at Furman, is the newest director of Bridges to a Brighter Future, Furman’s college access and success program tailored to students of Greenville County Schools whose potential outpaces their means. She is, herself, a product of GCS.

Just weeks into her appointment in August 2023, Gordon secured a three-year, $75,000 grant from United Way so her staff can provide the academic leverage to help lower-income students overcome financial limitations, housing and food insecurity, and other hurdles.

Rising 10th-grade students who have solid academic and attendance records and want to participate in Bridges nominate themselves or can be nominated by counselors, coaches or pastors. Bridges selects 25 students annually and delivers tools, programming and college experiences to help ensure graduation.

Gordon’s wish list for the program is lengthy but manageable, she says. She hopes to reintroduce year-round tutoring, bolster Saturday College at Furman, keep SAT and ACT resources current, strengthen communication with faculty and mentors and offer classes for parents and guardians to help them support their college-aspiring students.

Education and advocating for young people are part of Gordon’s DNA. As a child, she liked playing house like other kids, but she loved playing school. She began writing at age 4 and had early hopes to become a pediatrician.

She graduated from Clemson University with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. From there she taught in Greenville County, serving as a third grade teacher, family literacy specialist, drama teacher and technology coordinator at a Title I school. A stint at the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities as director of recruitment and admissions raised her awareness of arts inequities in schools, notably along South Carolina’s I-95 corridor.

In 2006, Gordon earned a master’s degree in theology from Duke Divinity School, where things began to gel. “I didn’t go to divinity school to become a pastor,” she admits. “I learned that education is my ministry.”

Gordon spent about 10 years in Nashville, Tennessee, researching family systems and developing an understanding of how children and adolescents learn. As director of leadership ministries for the United Methodist Church, she authored educational resources to encourage families in their quest to grow in their faith.

Back home in Greenville, she served as director of diversity and inclusion at Christ Church Episcopal School and taught religion and ethics, where she observed high school students practicing principles of “ubuntu” – a 2,000-year-old African philosophy focused on compassion and humanity.

“I think these experiences give me a deeper understanding of students of this age and what they need to have successful careers,” Gordon says, adding that it all begins with a pathway to postsecondary educational success and a range of good choices.

To keep her focus for Bridges, she borrows a tagline from her father and muse who coincidentally served as superintendent of GCS at the time Bridges was created in 1997. “Success, nothing less,” she says, is her mantra going forward. 

Gordon has more hopes for Bridges.

“I want every student to have a solid plan for how to be successful in college,” she says. “I want every one of them to graduate from Bridges with a financial plan for success and an academic plan for success with the support of a community of Furman faculty and staff mentors and teachers from Greenville County Schools. That’s my dream.”