Graduate Spotlight
Melanie Shaw, Doctor of Naturopathy
“A Portal to Learning”
In the 1990s Melanie Shaw was a nurse staffing coordinator and mother of two young daughters. One of her colleagues stood out as so “robustly healthy, chronically upbeat and immune to stress” that Melanie wanted to learn the secret to her success.
As you may easily guess, the secret was naturopathy.
Living in California, Melanie then found it easy to find and to cultivate a number of notable practitioners of natural health and holistic nutrition – a veritable Pandora’s Box, as she recalls. The more she read and the more she discussed naturopathic lifestyles with people who seemed “forever young,” the more she wanted to give this lifestyle to her own family.
Married to a military man whose next tour of duty would be Atlanta, Melanie understood that the career change she craved was not destined to include the traditional classroom and being tied to a physical campus.
Her dad gave her a computer and, while bouncing a toddler on her knee, Melanie recalls the excitement of finding CCNH, the thrill of taking a leisurely virtual tour of the website, and gleefully saying, “Look, Honey! We’re at Mommy’s new school!”
These life-changing studies have followed the Shaws abroad. The young mother earned her B.S. in Natural Health, then an M.S. in Holistic Nutrition. Melanie completed her N.D. degree in Germany, and is now a Ph.D. candidate!
“Clayton College allowed me to have ‘portable’ learning for the first time in my life. It’s so gratifying to succeed in these studies, even in the midst of moving our family and continuing to work part-time.
“We are healthier, happier, and I am so delighted with all that I’ve been learning. CCNH became a portal for further learning. I stay charged up about completing these studies, which now translate into further graduate studies (with other universities) in school counseling, curriculum and teaching.”
Incorporating the teachings of psychological wellness and relaxation, Melanie’s multi-disciplinary approach ranges from aromatherapy to music and visual art therapy, herbology, body mechanics, nutrition and more. This international educator, author and practitioner is proudly raising a new generation of “natural kids.” Her own daughters have won science fairs for inventing environmentally-friendly household cleaners, and in addition to Melanie’s hundreds of young students, she’ll be teaching-the-teachers as well!
“I’m writing a world-music lesson plan for teachers, seasonal vegetarian menus, natural health articles on subjects from vitamins to weight loss, cancer and cholesterol. It seems that the more I write, the more I’m inspired to write more.”
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