Rising Up: Unique Program Forming and Forging College’s Future Leaders

The program was amazing. The college has built a platform that teaches you how to be a leader anywhere.

Helping people always came naturally to Janell Berry.

At Milwaukee Area Technical College, she discovered she can lead them as well.

After graduating from high school, Berry planned on being a nurse. She took classes at MATC but stopped out. She returned to take business classes, earned an associate degree and worked as a corporate trainer for 10 years. “I found out you can help people in all sorts of ways,” she said.

In 2015, she took a job at the MATC Call Center and then became an academic advisor in 2020. Last fall she was among the first group of MATC employees to complete Emerging Leaders, a yearlong program that prepares full-time staff to be supervisors and managers.

“The program was amazing,” Berry said. “The college has built a platform that teaches you how to be a leader anywhere. In the program you learn so much about yourself professionally and personally. A lot of it was really eye-opening. I learned I have a voice, that my voice matters and that I can use it to bring about change.”

Laquitha “Elle” Bonds-Jones, the college’s vice president of human resources, recognized that MATC needed to develop new leadership voices, like Berry’s. “This was a vision that has lived in my belly for twenty years,” Bonds-Jones said. 

During the tenure of former MATC President Vicki J. Martin, Bonds-Jones envisioned an institute for existing leaders to sharpen their skills, then started to brainstorm with her HR leaders to create a program to train new leaders internally: Emerging Leaders.

“If you wanted to move into a supervisory role at the college,and didn’t have any experience, you had to leave the college to get that experience,” said Michelle Wild, the college’s director of training, development and credentialing. “We wanted to retain talent.”

In the program, developed and led by Wild, participants complete 325 hours of developmental activities over a twelve month period. The training includes monthly workshops, application activities, learning from leaders on best practices, a 360 feedback assessment, and completion of a six month practicum to develop experience and confidence in supporting, engaging and driving high performance teams.

In the last six months of the program, participants also receive a mentor to help guide and support their development

When they complete all the requirements, participants earn an Emerging Leaders credential, which serves as an equivalent to two years of supervisory experience that they can use to apply for positions at the college.

“We want participants to have the confidence, skills and experience they need to be in that role,” Wild said. “We developed something very accelerated and very robust.”

The college launched Emerging Leaders in October 2023. The first cohort had 11 employees, including Berry, who were chosen from 44 applications. The second cohort began last October. 

Applications for the program’s third cohort, which will start in October 2025, are now being accepted. The deadline to apply is May 16. To be eligible, employees must be full-time and have worked at MATC for at least two years. 

Apply for Emerging Leaders

Interested employees must submit a completed application, a resume and two letters of recommendation. Also, their current supervisors must complete an approval form that assesses the employee’s strengths . Human Resources personnel score the applications and a committee of the college’s Executive Leadership Team reviews them to select the participants.

Once selected, participants agree to complete all pre-work, attend all workshops and finish all necessary coursework.

Berry said she liked her job as an advisor, but thought she could be doing even more to help students. “I always wondered how I could expand my impact beyond my office walls,” she said. 

She found out about Emerging Leaders, applied and was accepted. She learned how to have crucial conversations, how to navigate different working styles, how to give feedback, how to run effective meetings, and how to be transparent, authentic and accountable.

At the same time she was working and participating in the program, she was finishing her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Lakeland University.

“I won’t lie, it was a lot of work,” she said. 

In October 2024, she was one of five participants who earned two years of supervisory experience. In February, Berry was one of three participants to be either promoted or re-classified: She became a supervisor in advising; Peter Cuoto is now a supervisor in retention; and Megan Hamilton, who is now the manager of online learning.

Participation in the program doesn’t guarantee promotions, Wild cautioned.

Berry now leads a team of 12 employees. Thanks to the program, she felt completely prepared to accept her new role. “The tool box of what you learn in Emerging Leaders is huge, and you will use all those tools,” she said. “MATC invested in me and gave me an education I can use my entire life. One of my goals now is to help someone get to where I am.”

Sarah Koch, a media designer in the college’s marketing and communications department, is in the program’s second cohort. She always wanted to manage people, but didn’t have any experience.

“Emerging Leaders was the opportunity I needed to gain that knowledge,” Koch said. “I have been energized by the topics we are covering. And we get to put what we are learning into action. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.”

No other technical college in the state has such a leadership development program, Bonds-Jones said. But that could soon change. Wild presented details of the program to the Wisconsin Technical College System’s Human Resources Leader Group, she said.

“A lot of mouths dropped to the floor,” Bonds-Jones said. “Many of the colleges have been asking us for more information about it. We’re very, very proud of what we have been able to do with this program.”