Merlin G. Cheney grew up on a farm in southeast Idaho. He attended the University of Idaho as a pre-med student before discovering literature and switching to English with a chemistry minor. He started as an adjunct professor at Weber State in 1963 and went full-time in 1965 as a professor of English. He served as the Director of Composition and initiated several vital programs such as English as a Second Language Instruction, and the Masters of English. He received his MA in 1966 at Brigham Young University, and his PhD at Bowling Green University in 1971. His PhD dissertation is on Thomas Hardy, an English novelist and poet. He retired in 2012 after 47 years of service.