Originally from England, Marcelle Doheny has been a teacher in the History Department for 34 years. She has a particular passion for teaching electives that examine how gender impacted power dynamics in Tudor England. She also has a strong interest in interdisciplinary courses, co-teaching a senior elective that explores how climate change has shaped history. In her free time, Doheny loves to read mystery novels and getting outside to exercise.
For me, it is about a sense of place. Where I grew up, the countryside there is very neolithic. There’s a lot of ancient earthworks and burial mounds and features in the country and the landscape. You’re just walking on history. And my dad was a huge walker, we were always out and about. And so for me, history is always about a sense of the physical place. I think that comes from the fact that I walked all over that particular area where I grew up. Then that developed into a sense of place in terms of buildings.
I had a bit of an international upbringing, because my mom is not English, but from Belgium. As a kid, I was always going across the channel to the continent, as we call it in England, to visit relatives. There were also multiple languages in my house growing up. I think I always felt international to some extent, and I always had a bit of that itch to go work somewhere else. So I came here in my mid-20s. I didn’t know I was going to stay, but that’s just the way it worked out.
I remember going to grocery stores, because it’s something you tend to do every day. I was really surprised because apart from the person checking you out, there was also someone packing the groceries for you with the bags. That was not my experience growing up. I remember thinking how interesting it was that someone packs the groceries for you, and then puts them into paper bags. When I came to this country, they would give you paper bags that didn’t have handles. So I remember thinking ‘well, what use is that?’ It’s the silliest thing, but it really struck me. In England, we would just go grocery shopping, and you pack your own groceries in bags that you bring yourself after it comes down the line.
This is a really interesting place. It’s a bit like history. There’s as much continuity as there is change. Students still hang on to certain fables or myths about being a student here, like how dreadful the 300 paper is, and [other] things like that. [As for] student culture, students have changed because how we get information has changed. It’s really the advent of all the online mediums that are making things harder, [especially] for someone of my age and background where everything was words on paper. So, I’ve changed too. I can’t teach now without technology, and that shift sort of happens in dribs and drabs, until suddenly you realize [that] ten years ago you weren’t doing this. It sort of creeps up on you. Adult culture has also changed a lot. When I came, the history department was [composed] mostly of male alums. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it was just a function of the early 1990s. So the faculty composition has changed a lot since [I joined]. Now, in the History department, we have people from many different backgrounds in terms of their training and global histories, including the Middle East, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia.
When I came, it was a very different ninth grade course. We’re about to rewrite the ninth grade again this summer. That’s my fourth go-around. It mostly changes in terms of time periods that we choose to cover. We change our priorities with what we think would be most beneficial for students. I think students read less written words than they used to, and that’s just a fact. It’s not a judgment on students’ ability levels or anything like that. It’s just the world that students live in. So we’ve changed courses to work with that. We’ve also changed the way we teach writing. We’re much more intentional today about supporting students through the process of writing, [which means] working with students, scaffolding assignments, giving them time to do the work. When I came in the early 90s, that sink or swim ethos was sort of going away, but it was still more like that than it is now, so that’s a progression.
I’ve liked them all for very different reasons. I did one with a music teacher here a few years ago, because I’m very fond of music. I don’t have a favorite. They all do different things for me because I have lots of interests. I’m not really a specialist. I have lots of different things that I get interested in, and that’s actually why being able to write these electives is so compelling for me.
I can spontaneously learn about things in order to teach them. That’s what I love doing. It’s great that Andover lets faculty do that as well. It keeps the classrooms alive for students as well. We’re very, very lucky as teachers here to be able to feed our own interests in that way and have it be encouraged. It’s wonderful.
[My inspirations were] very different. The gender and power one is set in 16th century England, which was my first love as a kid. For some reason I just got hooked on that [time period] when I was about eleven years old. There were a couple of period pieces on TV, and I just loved it. I think it’s because the characters were larger than life, and there was a lot of drama in it. And for me, history is also about the individuals. I mean, if it’s not about people, what is it about? As a kid, I certainly got interested in [the history of] dramatic people who had dramatic lives. [Meanwhile], the climate [course] was very different. I worked with Dr. Hagler in the Biology Department. We had done a previous elective together about the history of disease and medicine in the United States for a number of years. Then, at least ten years ago, we just sat and thought about mixing it up. At that time, all the stuff was coming about climate change and we thought to ourselves that there’s no way the Earth has been static in history. [Our plan was to] educate about how climate, weather, and non-human things have had a real impact on human history. I love doing interdisciplinary stuff like this because you can’t do some subjects without working with others. And history could be about everything, right? Anything and everything. With the [topic of] climate change in the past, you need science to go with the history. And Dr. Hagler can explain certain things in class that I can’t. So, we try to put it together [through] collaboration.
I have taught a senior elective on indigenous civil rights a couple of times, and I will do it again. We rotate them somewhat, so we don’t do the same ones every year. My inspiration is that sense of place again. Like, when I go to the countryside in New England, a lot more about the indigenous presence that used to be there. Landscape to me is about people’s pasts, so here, that [translates] to a focus on indigenous presence.
I don’t have as many hobbies. Once I had kids, I didn’t have as many hobbies. I do love music and traveling. [But], I don’t have things I make and do like I used to in the evenings. [Although], I will probably go back to something or find something new once I retire. You’ll find out that [having kids] limits you. You’re either running the dorm or spending time with them, so you can’t do as many things. [Still], I love reading, [specifically] mystery novels. I’m a bit of a detective fiction mystery novel buff. I also love exercising, going to the gym, and just getting outside. I used to play in orchestras a lot. I just found that very difficult to do when I was in the dorm. I used to play oboe, which I probably should go back to at some point.
I used to play a lot of sports, especially team sports. A lot of field hockey, a lot of badminton. I used to do a lot of evening sports, less so when I came to the United States. There’s less amateur sports for women once they’ve gone into the workforce. It’s different here. England’s full of amateurs. The British are completely in love with being amateurs at something. They love their hobbies. I feel like the community there is very different, because it feels very connected. Even though I’m not obviously part of those clubs in England, I could just walk in and be like ‘oh, do you want to play a match?’ I like that culture.
