New director to lead Health Center’s diversity efforts

Carolyn Lyle has a simple message: building and valuing diversity makes the end product better.

Lyle is the new executive director of the Health Center’s recently re-named Office of Diversity and Equity.

And while her job is highly complex – involving adjudication, mediation, advocacy, and compliance – and replete with rules, regulations, and requirements, she says what matters in the end is a positive workplace where the very best care is given to patients, the very best research is carried out, and the very best education is delivered to students.

“Diversity” in this case means asking a wide variety of individuals to use their many and varied talents in a cooperative way to benefit patients and students.

“The business case for diversity is related to being the best in our mission of ‘Providing remarkable care through research and education,’” Lyle says. “Diversity is directly related and critical to our ability to be the best and to provide the best patient care, education, and research.

“We want to foster employees’ understanding of their role in being the best the Health Center can be,” she adds. “It’s critical for employees to understand diversity as it relates to their talents, perspectives, backgrounds, and the skills they bring every day to the challenges of the workplace.”

Previously known as the Office of Diversity Programs, the office’s new name – Office of Diversity and Equity – gives a clue to the administrative paradigm.

Diversity at the Health Center, Lyle says, represents an umbrella where building, valuing, and managing people’s differences comes together. She says it is important to understand that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and perspectives, can successfully come together for the common goal of providing remarkable care and research.

“Equity is not a legal term but represents fairness, organizational justice, civil treatment, and respect in the workplace,” she says.

“Employees will be more productive if they perceive that their opportunities to contribute to the challenges of the workplace are fair, equally distributed, and respected vis-à-vis their co-workers. Equity is fairness.”

In addition, enforcing non-discrimination is an important service and legal aspect of the office’s work, Lyle says.