Holtman Headshot

Danielle Holtman
Cultivating Community
Staff: Coordinator of College Programs
April 2020

Danielle Holtman is the Coordinator of College Programs at Life University. She is involved in multiple wellness and diversity initiatives on campus including Compassionate Integrity Training (facilitator), Gender and Sexual Diversity awareness and helping to create VitalU. She is the chair of the Staff Council Executive Board and loves her job here at LIFE. “I am really proud of LIFE and how we seem to be on this trajectory of creating more inclusive environments, and not just among staff and faculty, but with our students too. I hope that continues,” Holtman said.

Holtman found LIFE through an internship at the Student Success Center. She had finished her master’s degree in counseling in 2007, and after completing her internship at LIFE, she was hired on full time. She was a counselor at LIFE for a few years and then left to work at Georgia State University. Once she had her triplets, she stayed home with them for a couple of years.

Holtman’s daughters are now 8 years old and keep her busy. She coaches their lacrosse team with her husband and is a co-leader of their girl scout troop. In her free time, she loves walking her 2-year-old golden doodle named Clark and doing yoga. She also enjoys playing tennis mixed doubles with her husband.

When Holtman’s daughters got a little older, she decided to go back to work. She came to LIFE in 2015 a second time and worked in Disability Services for a year. “Georgia State was so much bigger, and I love that at LIFE, it feels like everybody knows everyone, and the vitalistic model really speaks to me personally,” Holtman shared. “In my experience, you can’t find that in many places, especially in higher education. It just feels like home in a lot of ways for me.”

Holtman started working in Academic Affairs on academic projects in 2016. As chair of the Staff Council Executive Board, she helped LIFE started VitalU. VitalU was conceptualized about a year ago, trying to figure out what the needs of staff were and what would improve the morale on campus. “We spend most of our time at work, so we want to encourage our employees to be mindful of incorporating wellness in their daily experience.”

Working in a vitalistic health institution, we wanted to capture work-life balance, living congruently with our mission and vision and teaching staff what that looks like. Jenifer Valtos and Holtman started researching what other corporate wellness programs looked like and what actually worked and what didn’t. They figured out incentive-based, community-centered wellness was key. It was a collaboration between Valtos and Holtman on the research end of it, and the Staff Council Executive Board helped create it. The inaugural VitalU started in Fall Quarter 2019. “It’s only on its second quarter, and it feels like it’s already been changing the campus. People are having more conversations about health and what’s happening in their actual lives.”

My love language is quality time, so that’s how I’m able to do so much. I feel like this university is very growth minded. We are open to change and want to evolve to fit the needs of our community. It’s really fun to work at a place where you can see that progress.

 

 

 

LEARN MORE:

 

Faces of LIFE is a story campaign that showcases members of the dynamic LIFE community, including faculty/staff, students, alumni and health science professionals. Interested in being featured or nominating a candidate? E-mail Natalie.Esparza@LIFE.edu. Read more Faces of LIFE stories.