Merci, Madame! Celebrating 50 Years of Joyce Smetanka Campbell at Mercy
For 50 remarkable years, Madame Joyce Campbell has inspired generations of Mercy students to fall in love with the French language and culture. As Chair of the World Languages Department, she leads a vibrant team of educators offering French, Spanish, and Latin at every level, including Advanced Placement. She moderates the French Honor Society and French Club, fostering a community that celebrates the beauty, diversity, and global influence of the Francophone world.
“French has always been more than a subject — it is a doorway to art, cuisine, history, travel, and human connection,” she reflects. “The language brings people together across geography and time, and it allows me to open the world to my students in ways that feel both beautiful and meaningful.”
Throughout her career, Madame Campbell has championed innovation and excellence. She helped establish two language labs at Mercy and continues to weave technology and creativity into her instruction.
“Joyce brings a fresh approach to her teaching. She is highly motivated, works very hard to be a good French teacher, genuinely cares about the progress of her pupils, and is generous with her time. She has poise and tact and can judge a situation well in advance and handle it easily.”
Her classroom is a place where la langue française comes alive through lessons on theater, art, poetry, and architecture; immersive cultural experiences; and decades of memories from 24 student trips to France with 525 participants. She has also led students to the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fisher Theatre, the Detroit Opera House, and local French restaurants, along with Mercy’s annual National French Week celebrations sponsored by the AATF.
“In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Drama Studio became something magical each December when it transformed into Le Café-Club Paradis,” she recalls. “With the help of my family, friends, and enthusiastic students, we created a little corner of Paris right inside Mercy — a boulangerie, a pâtisserie, a fruit market, even a boucherie.”
Today, National French Week remains a beloved tradition featuring morning prayers and trivia, a t-shirt contest, art and music, crêpes, and a special dinner at Cuisine Detroit. A highlight this year was a macaron-making demonstration by alumna Tina Aiello Sturgis ’90, who studied French pastry in Paris.
Madame Campbell’s influence extends well beyond the classroom. Many of her former students now serve in diplomacy, law, business, education, and other fields, carrying with them the cultural awareness and leadership foundations she helped build. Among her most cherished memories is reconnecting in Paris with alumna Meghan Ronayne Dubois ’11, who was living and working there through a special company program. Meghan was the first to request France as her assignment from her strong French skills and cultural confidence rooted in her years at Mercy.
“When we met in Paris, it was a full-circle moment,” Madame Campbell shares. “To walk the city with a former student — now a poised professional speaking fluent French — was one of the greatest joys of my career.”
In addition to her work with students, Madame Campbell has shared her expertise with language educators nationwide. She has presented at local, state, regional, and national conferences — including Oakland Schools, the Michigan World Language Association, the Central States Conference, and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages — offering workshops on how Project-Based Learning enhances target-language proficiency.
Her professional achievements are both extensive and deeply earned. Madame Campbell was recently recognized as one of just eight Outstanding French Honor Society Moderators nationwide by the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF). She has also been invited to present at the Central States Foreign Language Teachers Conference, sharing innovative approaches to using AI in project-based French learning. Past honors include being named Mercy’s Teacher of the Year (2009), Michigan World Language Association Teacher of the Year (1995), recipient of the Intercultural Student Experiences Language Matters Award (2008), and the MIWLA Barbara Ort-Smith Award (2018). Her affiliations span the AATF, the French Institute Alliance Française of Michigan, the Oakland Schools World Language Leaders Advisory Council, and the Central States Conference.
“Some of my favorite moments as a teacher happen when I watch students discover something new,” she says. “The first time they hold a real conversation, taste a warm crêpe, interpret an Impressionist painting, recognize a lyric in a French song, or stand in awe beneath the Eiffel Tower. Their joy fuels my own passion.”
Investing in the Future of French at Mercy - Give Today
The French Language & Culture Endowment will support and strengthen the future of French at Mercy. This fund will directly enhance students’ experiences by providing resources for materials, guest speakers, cultural programming, and field trips—bringing language learning to life in impactful ways. Three generous donors have already pledged $25,000 to establish the endowment. Our goal now is to build on this momentum and secure additional support to ensure the program continues to thrive for years to come!
Your support—at any level—will help create lasting opportunities for current and future Mercy students. If you would like to learn more and donate, please feel free to reach out to the Mercy Advancement Office at advancement@mhsmi.org.