Today Chase O’Donnell and I will be continuing our conversation about dating. We dive into the influence of birth order of siblings and our parents in our compatibility with love matches. We compare our experiences across the life span. Chase is a stand-up comedienne who has recently released her first special, “People Pleaser”, which you can find on YouTube. She is on Instagram at chase.odonnell. You can book her on her website chaseodonnell.com. This is my last radio show. You can find me at mercy@leadershipwithmercy.com.

“Should I Break Up with My Friend?” – A System’s View of Friendship
Today, I answer a listener’s question about a troubling friendship. Friendships are an important part of our social network. They give us space from the close bonds of family. Sometimes they are embedded in our families and help us get along with each other. And for others, friends are their “families of choice”. Along with this, friendships can be as difficult to manage as relationships in the family. Today I talk about how dynamics born out of the family play out in our friendships. When and how to talk about difficult subjects. And how to decide when to let a friendship go.

Vance and Princess have created a popular motivational health and fitness business in Cary, North Carolina… Sweat Sweet! Today we will talk about their personal journeys toward both fitness and entrepreneurship as a couple. This journey included building on personal strengths, setbacks and resilience through COVID. Their message is simple and powerful. Making change can be tough. It takes a shift in mindset and a support network of accountability. You can do hard things and the benefit will flow over into the rest of your life.

In the second part of our interview Laurie will tells us how her community theater ensemble in a town of 10,000 expanded around the globe to Sub-Saharan Africa. Last week we opened with the story of the beginning of her lifelong career. She began by following a renowned acting coach, Alvina Krause, to her retirement home in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, with classmates from Northwestern’s MFA in Acting program. They stayed and created an ensemble theater from which Laurie recently retired as an emeritus member. Her story is one of the magical mix of vision and grit shared in the ensemble, local cultural and financial benefactors and fertile soil in a welcoming community. The innate passions and talents of the ensemble opened doors to profound exchanges with international and native cultures.
A link to an article that appeared in AMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE about her retirement: https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/02/25/laurie-mccants-the-ensemble-ethic/

In our interview Laurie will tell us the story of her lifelong career that began in community theater and has spanned the globe. She began by following a renowned acting coach, Alvina Krause, to her retirement home in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, with classmates from Northwestern’s MFA in Acting program. They stayed and created an ensemble theater from which Laurie recently retired as an emeritus member. Her story is one of the magical mix of vision and grit shared in the ensemble, local cultural and financial benefactors and fertile soil in a welcoming community. The innate passions and talents of the ensemble opened doors that took them to Sub-Saharan Africa and around the globe.
LAURIE McCANTS co-founded the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE) in 1978, where she co-created HARD COAL, OUR SHADOWS (a bilingual puppet play with Egypt’s Wamda), and SUSQUEHANNA: MIGHTY, MUDDY, CROOKED RIVER OF THE LONG REACH. In 1991, she performed with BTE in a US State Department-sponsored tour of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana, and Namibia. In 2010, she was named an “Actor of Distinguished Achievement” through a Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship (funded by the William & Eva Fox Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group). In 2015, she spent a month in Bali learning shadow puppetry and with WAMDA, an Egyptian puppet company, she co-created a bilingual play that toured to schools all over Pennsylvania and the surrounding states. She served as Board President of the national Network of Ensemble Theaters, and she serves as a Trustee on the Board of the national Theatre Communications Group. She was composer Julia Wolfe’s “coal region consultant” for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, ANTHRACITE FIELDS. In 2016, she accepted BTE’s “Outstanding Theatre” award from the National Theatre Conference. Her solo show INDUSTRIOUS ANGELS was presented at the Ko Festival of Performance in Amherst, Massachusetts in 2018, and at BTE in 2019. She is currently researching her new solo show, for which she received a Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. Because of her work at Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska, she is an adopted Kiks.ádi Tlingit, Frog Clan, Raven Moiety. Her Tlingit name is Khaachguun.
 A link to an article that appeared in AMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE about her retirement: https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/02/25/laurie-mccants-the-ensemble-ethic/

Leadership: Ed Reed, NFL Hall of Famer and Bethune-Cookman College with Dr. Daryl Green, Part 2 My guest is Dr. Daryl Green. Dr. Green is the Dickinson Chair of Business professor at Oklahoma Baptist University in Oklahoma City. After a 27 year career as a Mechanical Engineer at the Department of Energy, he pivoted to a leadership role in higher education in business management. This morning we will talk about leadership. Last week we introduced the topic of football legend Ed Reed’s dismissal from Bethune-Cookman, a HBCU Christian college in Daytona Beach, Florida. This controversial decision by this Historically Black College’s Interim President has received nationwide attention. As a Professor of Leadership in a Christian College, Dr. Green brings a unique perspective to the challenges faced by both the institutional leaders and the informal role of leadership of a celebrity athlete with students and fans. I expect a lively discussion with Dr. Green, so let’s get started! Website: https://www.okbu.edu/directory/daryl-green.html

Pursuing Purpose in a Second Career: Creative Leadership
In today’s show, my guest is Dr. Daryl Green. Dr. Green is the Dickinson Chair of Business professor at Oklahoma Baptist University in Oklahoma City. After a 27 year career as a Mechanical Engineer at the Department of Energy, he pivoted to a leadership role in higher education in business management. This morning we will talk about his career path, Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and his passion for student learning in higher education. We also introduce a topic for next week’s show on the role of athletics in education highlighted by football legend Ed Reed’s dismissal from Bethune-Cookman, a HBCU college in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Website:
https://www.okbu.edu/directory/daryl-green.html

Today, Mercy has a second conversation with her colleague and friend Leslye Kornegay. In this show we talk about Dr. Kornegay’s leadership principles. We talk about her leadership practices and how they reflect her life values, experiences and aspirations. Dr. Kornegay is a life long learner; she is a graduate of the College of Education Doctoral program at the University of Vermont. She holds a Masters of Administration from Central Michigan University and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration/minor in Organizational Development from the University of Mount Olive. Dr. Kornegay is an Executive Director with substantial in-house experience leading organizational change. High premium on providing exceptional support services for clientele. Focus on aligning organizational goals with institutional strategic goals, mission and values. Broad experience in all aspects of financial management. Dr. Kornegay’s area of expertise- predominately white institutions, higher education, diversity and inclusion, strategic planning, leadership and change management, women in leadership, succession planning and mentoring. She has presented numerous presentations and workshops in her area of expertise at the local, regional and national level. Dr. Kornegay was awarded the Susan Hasazi ALANA Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement in Doctoral Education from the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont. She is a member of the international honor society Pi Gamma Mu. Contact Information: Consulting Business: KornegayKonsulting@gmail.com Foundation Nonprofit: Kornegayfoundation@gmail.com Leslyekornegay@gmail.com

Mercy’s guest today is John Miller. Today, John shares the evolution of his remarkable career shaped by mentors and opportunities that emerged from his curiosity about the many artists and craftsmen he photographed. We talk about “Deer Camp” a personal and social project based in the lives of rural Vermonters. Motivated by empathy with the tools of photography and stories, John portrays his deep love of humanity. John Miller first began his photographic career for Shelburne Museum in Vermont and has since been the project photographer for seven major exhibits funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His photographs have been exhibited nationally and have been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, Publishers Weekly, the Journal of Visual Anthropology, the Vermont History Quarterly, Yankee Magazine, Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television. Miller received his MFA degree from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. He has taught documentary photography seminars at the University of Vermont and is a retired Professor of photography and digital imaging at Northern Vermont University. He has also been a visiting artist in elementary schools in northern Vermont and at the American Academy in Rome. Recent photographic exhibits include Human/Nature (a comparative photo-documentary about humans and land and architecture in both Italy and the United States) and the 2018 traveling exhibit Dialogue with Resonance: Recent Collage – Italy.

Mercy’s guest today is John Miller. John is a documentary photographer based in Irasburg, Vermont. His career has spanned a wide range of projects on life in northeastern Vermont, what we call the Northeast Kingdom, Italy, the West, well…anywhere he travels. Today we will be talking about the evolution of his career as an artist and his deep love for humanity. John Miller first began his photographic career for Shelburne Museum in Vermont and has since been the project photographer for seven major exhibits funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His photographs have been exhibited nationally and have been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, Publishers Weekly, the Journal of Visual Anthropology, the Vermont History Quarterly, Yankee Magazine, Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television. He has published two books – Deer Camp: Last Light in the Northeast Kingdom and Granite and Cedar. He directed and edited the exhibit and publication Voices and Faces: Portrait of a Community. Miller received his MFA degree from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. He has taught documentary photography seminars at the University of Vermont and is a retired Professor of photography and digital imaging at Northern Vermont University. He has also been a visiting artist in elementary schools in northern Vermont and at the American Academy in Rome. Recent photographic exhibits include Human/Nature (a comparative photo-documentary about humans and land and architecture in both Italy and the United States) and the 2018 traveling exhibit Dialogue with Resonance: Recent Collage – Italy.