Ferrum, VA, November 6, 2025—The annual Ferrum College Veterans Day Program on Tuesday, November 11, 2025, at 11:30 AM in Vaughn Chapel, will feature Professor Emeritus Melvin Macklin speaking about the importance of veterans in today’s uncertain world. Dr. Macklin served as an Army Sergeant and Radio Communications Specialist from 1965 to 1969, in Germany and in Vietnam during the TET Offensive. The program is free and open to the public.
Other veterans and active service members from across the college community will also be recognized at the ceremony. The Panther Singers will lead the National Anthem, directed by Music and Theatre Program Coordinator Emily Blankenship-Tucker and accompanied by Ms. Ashley Cundiff.
The Office of Human Resources notes that Dr. Macklin “exemplifies a lifelong commitment to service, scholarship, and leadership. His distinguished career spans honorable military service, pioneering research, and decades devoted to teaching, mentoring, and inspiring others.”
Serving in the United States Army as a Sergeant (E-5) and Radio Communications Specialist with the 3rd U.S. Army, Dr. Macklin held top-secret clearance. He served in Mannheim, Germany, and deployed to Da Nang, Vietnam, during the 1968-1969 TET Offensive. He received multiple commendations, including the National Defense Service Medal, Army Rifle Expert Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with Bronze Stars, Vietnam Campaign Medal with Cluster, and the Good Conduct Medal.
Dr. Macklin’s teaching and research have focused on Holocaust studies and American literature, especially African American literature and slave narratives. When he completed his Ph.D. in Literary Studies from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2008, he was also the first recipient of a Certificate in Holocaust Studies. He has taught in the English Department at Ferrum College since 2008. After retiring from full-time teaching, he was named professor emeritus in 2021, and he continues to teach part-time.
Research on African American history and culture in his home region has led Dr. Macklin to write several works, including Traces in the Dust: Carbondale’s Black Heritage, 1852–1964; Generations: A Pictorial Review of African Americans in Carbondale, Illinois; and The Legacy of Attacks and Black Institutions in the Northeast Carbondale Community.
He has organized and led a number of conferences and seminars, including Ferrum College’s Holocaust Conference: A Celebration of Survival (2015) and the Tell Me Your Names poetry seminar at James Madison University (2012). He has presented talks and visual displays based on his research on children in the Holocaust. In 2016, he was selected by the Council of Independent Colleges and the Gilder Lehrman Institute to attend the prestigious Slave Narratives seminar at Yale University.
During his teaching career of more than fifty years, Dr. Macklin also taught in Texas public schools and worked with adult learners seeking GEDs, immigrants studying English as a Second Language, and those preparing for U.S. citizenship.
On the day after the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival in October, Dr. Macklin had lunch with colleagues at the 77 restaurant in Ferrum. He didn’t realize he was sitting under a very appropriate sign that says “We stand with our Veterans,” but one of his friends took a picture. He said then that at the Veterans Day ceremony, he plans to quote Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address on the importance of caring for veterans.
Throughout his career, Dr. Macklin has held steadfast to two goals: to continually strive for self-improvement and to become a better teacher. He believes, as former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Robert Mueller once said, that each of us should “seek to affirm to others the fundamental dream and vision of the world we want.”
This program is a special opportunity to recognize and show our gratitude to the men and women who have served in our armed forces. All members of the local and college community are encouraged to join Ferrum College in this meaningful event.
