Melanie Hendry and Trusting the Creative Journey
Spotlight: 2025 Exceptional Faculty Award recipient
Baking is in Chef Melanie Hendry’s DNA, but it wasn’t a calling she immediately embraced. Her mother was also a chef, which meant Melanie would often—and grudgingly—tag along as her mother searched for unique ingredients in stores. But the culinary gene goes back even further—her grandmother was a preserve cook at an estate in the south of England, and it was in her bustling kitchen that Melanie first learned how to bake. “It’s always been there,” she said of her baking career. “It just needed to be organic.”
Her grandmother also taught her to sew clothes, a different kind of craft rooted in creativity and precision. That was the passion Melanie chose to pursue, attending Barnfield College of Art and Design in England and later earning a Higher National Diploma in clothing technology from the Kent Institute of Art and Design. She excelled in fashion clothing design, and a hat she created is displayed at a museum in Italy.
But after a few years of working in London’s fast fashion scene, she realized the destination wasn’t as enjoyable as the journey. She went home for a year and worked three jobs—all in food—to save up money to travel the world. One of those jobs was in an Italian bakery owned by a family friend, and, much like her grandmother’s kitchen, it became another gentle nudge toward the path she was meant to take.
“Alistair and I would silently bake bread side by side at midnight, and as the market outside would open and things started bustling, we’d have a cup of tea and breakfast,” Melanie recalled. “I loved that people waited at the door for fresh bread, and we’d go until we sold out. I loved the rhythm of it. I remember sitting down one day and thinking, ‘That’s how I want to feel every day.’”
Her love of food followed her around the globe as she worked in restaurants in Australia, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and India. Eventually, Melanie found her way to Portland and has lived and baked in the Pacific Northwest for the past 30 years, mostly working at and managing artisan bread bakeries, as well as tearooms, pastry shops, and cafes.
It was her friend Katie, a former faculty member at Clark’s Culinary Institute, who introduced Melanie to the Professional Baking program 16 years ago. She was blown away by how well-equipped the program was. She didn’t have to adjust her teaching to accommodate the school environment; she could teach students exactly as they would experience equipment and techniques in the industry.
“These students are really getting ready to work in the industry,” Melanie said. “This is a special experience that students are getting at a community college level.”
Her teaching career started with a single bread class. But after the program was remodeled a few years later, Melanie was asked to teach students how to run a retail space in the retail bakery and help with the second phase of expansion.
Students in the baking program spend their first year learning the foundations. Then, Melanie guides them through their first pop-up projects, giving students a taste of selling their own creations.
They start with chocolate chip cookies, but the goal is to get students thinking about their recipes in a different way. She wants them to find inspiration in someone else’s recipe and then put their own spin on it—and, along the way, learn to trust their own creative journeys.
Melanie’s approach to teaching is grounded in patience and growth. One reason she left the fashion industry was that it wasn’t a nurturing environment, so the welcoming attitude she brings to the kitchen isn’t surprising. Her kitchen is a space where students are encouraged to make mistakes and then learn from them.
Sometimes, if a student isn’t making any errors, Melanie will purposely mis-scale an ingredient so that the student must flex their creative muscles to figure out how to fix it. Being comfortable with making mistakes—knowing how to take a deep breath and calmly find a solution—is one of the most important things she wants students to take away from her classes.
She also wants students to have fun and not take things too seriously.
Be curious, she tells students. Try new things, be open-minded, and know they can do anything they want by trusting in themselves.
“She greets everybody with a smile and makes the classroom such a welcoming environment,” a student said in their nomination. “She never made me feel like a burden for asking a million questions or needing extra help.”
Another student echoed that sentiment, saying, “She’s the kind of teacher who helps you develop critical thinking skills. So, you aren’t just following a formula, but you’re actively engaged in the process.”
That emphasis on exploration extends beyond her own classroom. Last year, her students collaborated with the library for the first time to create a zine of their pop-up recipes, and Melanie is looking forward to more collaborations.
This term, the retail bakery implemented an environmental initiative in partnership with the student environmental club to reduce single-use cups. Additionally, Melanie is designing a collaborative project that allows a graphic design class to "hire" the retail bakery as a mock client to create a new logo for the business. It’s that kind of cross-disciplinary teamwork that Melanie loves to see her students involved in.
Just as she encourages her students to keep learning, Melanie continued to pursue her own education. Last year, she graduated from the Sourdough School in the United Kingdom, earning a diploma in baking as lifestyle medicine. She learned how to make and use specific flours in bread that support gut microbiome and mental and physical health—knowledge she can now share with her students.
At the heart of her work is her love for artisan bread. It’s one of her passions because you can make something so remarkable out of only a few ingredients, yet it requires significant skill.
“There’s so much alchemy there. It’s science—and a little bit of magic,” she said. “You can do the same thing every day but have different results. Baking is so much about how you feel when you do it.”
It's that irresistible sense of discovery that she hopes students carry with them—an understanding that the craft is never static and that each attempt, even the imperfect ones, teaches them something about their work and themselves when they show up willing to try again.
“That’s the joy of baking—you potentially can have the perfect day every day,” Melanie said. “And even if it’s not, you get to try again tomorrow. That’s why I never get bored of baking. Every day is new.”
Learn More About the Exceptional Faculty Awards
The Clark College Exceptional Faculty Awards are presented annually to full-time and part-time faculty members. Nominations can be submitted by Clark College students, faculty, classified employees, administrators, alumni, Board members, and Foundation directors. Students are particularly encouraged to submit nominations. Learn more about the Exceptional Faculty Awards here.
Nominations for the 2026 Faculty Excellence Award will open on March 2, 2026.
Read more about this year’s Clark Employee Award recipients.
Photo: Clark College/Jenny Shadley
Story by Malena Goerl, Staff Writer, Communications & Marketing