Kindness4Inclusion with Holly Mercier & Janet Sperstad

This episode of the CETL PIE podcast features Madison College faculty members from the School of Business and Applied Arts, Holly Mercier and Janet Sperstad. Holly and Janet share their experience with their Institute for Equity and Transformational Change (IETC) action research project, Kindness4Inclusion. They explain how they explored a kindness framework of self-awareness, perspective-taking, active-listening, and gratitude in their online global studies course to bring students from multiple cultures and generations together in a community of learning.

Holly Mercier is an instructor with 30 years of industry and teaching experience. Her primary areas of teaching and consulting expertise are market / consumer research, strategic planning, and organizational improvement. She provides leadership and support in planning customer research efforts, designing research instruments, collecting the data (via methods including but not limited to digital media, focus groups, personal interviews, and questionnaires), analyzing, interpreting, and reporting on data and facilitating the formulation of recommendations based on the data. Holly facilitates the formulation of strategic plans, key result measures, and action plans that are guided by customer needs. Additionally, she facilitates learning on a variety of topics including facilitation strategies, effective group / team interactions, process improvement theory and techniques. Finally, Holly works extensively with study abroad programs at Madison College and leads a student program in Europe annually.

Prior to teaching full time at Madison College, Holly owned a consulting business, worked for The Enterprise Group (a local management consulting firm) and worked for Rexam Medical Packaging (a local printer and converter). Holly holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology with an emphasis in Packaging Design, and a Master of Science degree in Continuing and Vocational Education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Janet Sperstad’s professional history reflects her lifelong vocation: driving excellence in meeting and event management execution and education. She has dedicated her career to defining the competencies and career pathways that articulate meeting planning as a design discipline requiring skills in the social sciences, executive leadership, and the cognitive sciences. Her contributions are global in scope and rooted in over 25 years as a meeting professional and executive leader in the corporate and non-profit sectors. Ms. Sperstad has been employed by a Fortune 500 global company, a statewide association, and owned a professional event management firm.

She is the Faculty Director, Madison College’s Event Management Business Solutions and is a faculty member of the Event Management Associate degree program, which she founded in 2002. This program has been selected as Competency Model Champion from the U.S. Department of Labor.