Kathryn Pierce IHM,  a religious with the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, headquartered in Monroe, Michigan, has extensive experience in intercultural training.

                   In 1963, she was one of six IHM sisters selected to move to the interior of Puerto Rico, where she taught in three different parochial and public schools in Cayey, Adjuntas and Caguas. She served on the  provincial leadership team for the IHM Order's overseas missioners from 1976-79.  

                   

                  Following that assignment, Pierce moved to Maryknoll, N.Y. in 1979 she was co-founder  and program director of Maryknoll's Cross-Cultural Services Program where she worked for more than twenty-five years. Pierce's expertise includes designing and facilitating cultural sensitivity workshops for missionaries leaving or coming to the United States. As part of her work, she has spoken frequently to international congregations and dioceses to facilitate the acculturation process of their newly-arrived international priests and religious. 

                

                Until Maryknoll's program closed in 2006, it was the nation's largest cultural assimilation program, designed for Catholic religious. Annually it conducted programs for more than seventy-five people.  

           

               After the Maryknoll program closed, Pierce returned to Detroit and established Intercultural Consultation Services, a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable corporation to continue this work.

               

              Pierce's undergraduate degree is from Marygrove College. She has a Master of Arts from New York University in Cross-Cultural Education, a Master of Arts from the Maryknoll School of Theology in scripture and theology, as well as additional graduate counseling and group processing coursework at Catholic University of Puerto Rico and University Associates in San Diego, California.    

     

               She has published articles on cross-cultural issues in The Occasional Papers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, American Missiological Bulletin, Leadership  and the VISION (Catholic Religious Vocation Discernment Guide.)